I'm Back with Updates

I've been on a little hiatus. This blog had served me well. A place for thoughts. A place for documentation. A sort of scrapbook for photos. But it seemed like it was starting to drive me instead of the other way around and I needed a break. I really didn't know if I'd come back to it. But something has been nagging me to take it up again.

So here I am.

With a little update on the fam from the past year and a half.

Tyler and Missy. 26 Years. We got to celebrate by going back to Anthony's, a restaurant we went to on our honeymoon. Our yard was featured in the Tooele Garden Tour once again. Missy completed her 10th half marathon and started her 6th year teaching 2nd grade. Tyler finally decided to fix his Achilles with surgery. It's been a slow process but he's off the knee scooter and gradually gaining strength in that foot again. 

New babies and missionaries. It was a race to see who was going to make it first: Wesley or Nate. Nate was coming on August 26, 2022 and Wesley's due date was the 27th. Wesley joined us on August 23 just in time to make it to the airport for a fabulous reunion. Did I mention school also started that week!?!

Nate finished his first year at BYU as an Economics major, is teaching piano to students in Eagle Mountain and is a TA for a business writing class. He loves to go to the gym, play basketball, pickleball, run, and tennis. You'll find him at most sporting events for BYU with a myriad of friends. He is a gatherer of friends when he comes home occasionally.

Ash graduated from high school and is finishing up hair school in Cedar City with about 6 more weeks to go. She is everyone's favorite hair stylist. She also finished up her first semester at SUU doing classes online and in the evenings because hair school is pretty much an 8 to 5 job. Ash transitioned pretty quickly to grown-up life when she moved out in June. She loves the mountains, avocado and toast, McDonald's Sprite, and hanging with friends.

Erik has one more semester to go at USU and will graduate this spring, majoring in Data Analytics. He's currently looking for job opportunities in that field. For now, he eats, drinks, sleeps tennis. He is on the club tennis team at USU, playing number one singles, and has traveled to tournaments in California and Texas. He teaches tennis classes at the Sports Academy and had a minor surgery soon after his dad. He is soon to be engaged to the wonderful Emma who is a real life pro at ice skating. For reals! She can do all the twirly, skate backward kind of stuff.

Alex has been playing more tennis and is destined to be better than his brothers if he continues playing. He loves pickleball, coding, Minecraft, and has become obsessed with Kakuro puzzles. Alex has become an only child at home and still loves hanging with mom and dad on our weekly dates and watching basketball games.

Kiersten and Jason are busy raising two wonderful little boys. Kiersten teaches piano and works for the UofU part time in a research lab. She even got her name on a published article! Jason is the maintenance guy for a company and loves fishing anytime he can. They love to be outdoors and are still driving our 2005 van they bought from us 3 1/2 years ago. Go Toyota!

We were able to take family road trip to Oregon this summer and brought Grandma instead to take Nate's place who couldn't leave FSY stuff behind. Ash caught the one-and-only salmon and Jason was enamored with crabbing.

We have been healthy, other than maxing out our insurance for the first time ever this year, and ready to see what the new year brings. One wedding for sure :)

Good Things Happening

Well, it's officially March by about 6 days and this is how we got to spend our Sunday morning.

Church got cancelled which doesn't happen too often. Alex measured 14.5 inches in our backyard.

Kiersten and Jason
Kiersten and Jason have moved back to Utah and are living in Herriman. Jason is working for the Walmarts in Utah County being their maintenance guy. Kiersten has joined a research group at the University of Utah where she meets with them once in awhile but mainly does a lot of virtual conferencing. She is hoping to get into grad school in the next few years. Oliver is growing and learning lots of new words. He gets to hang with daycare kids at Great-Grandma Laura's. AND . . . there is a new baby coming to their family in August.

Erik
Erik is at Utah State majoring in marketing. He found himself cute Ally Moss to date who loves to play board games as much as he does. We've met her a couple of times. Once when a group of them came home to quarantine for a weekend and another time when they came for a Super Bowl party..

Nathan
Australia finally opened up to missionaries again but a tad bit late for Nate to make it there. He also was moved to new area after being in the Sloan Lake area for quite awhile. He's not one to call a lot or write a lot, but thankfully his Grandma Laura has a cousin serving as a senior missionary in the same mission. SHE keeps me updated on how Nate is doing and will make sure I get those pictures. Sister Diane Ladwig tells me, "He's been a zone leader since he was with Elder Roberts. He is a humble, very hard working missionary, and his previous comps love him. He is making a difference here!"

Ashlyn
Ashlyn is a junior and working to keep her head above water while she holds a job and completes school and has an extensive social life. She was working at Fiiz, a local drink shop, but quit to work at Cold Stone.

She pops into my classroom once in awhile which my students LOVE. They love when big people come.

She's been to another dance and got asked to prom.

Alex
Alex came home with a Student of the Month sign which I'm afraid is buried under some pretty deep snow. We'll recover it one day.

He's been attending early morning math since October and his competition is this Tuesday. One day I discovered a photo of him at his 6th grade Valentine dance all hooded and masked. That was the last day I allowed him to wear his mask to school or wear his hood in class. The poor teacher probably had no idea who he was. Covid has sure done some funny things to kids. I think he felt comfortable hiding behind that mask.

He also completed basketball where his little team only lost one game. Alex managed to score a few baskets every game and has progressively gotten better. 

He's passing the sacrament in church and attending young mens. Where did this baby of mine go?

And for the rest of us . . . my little blog has suffered at the hands of mandatory LETRS training. I'm getting paid to do it, but it doesn't leave me with a lot of time. Tyler completed his year as the Tooele County Master Gardeners Association president, and during that time they severed ties with the Utah State Extension. This means that little gardening group (which is growing bigger) is figuring out a new identity with new goals and projects.

Covid is finally winding down, our temple is making progress,

and Wordle has taken over the family group chat every morning.

On the 12th Day of COVID . . .

There was a great surprise.

12 rolls of toilet paper
11 ounce of Clorox
10 mandarin oranges
9 ripe bananas
8 ounce of cheese
7 cans of soup
6 slice of bacon
5 rows of Oreos
4 cubes of butter
3 macaroni
2 chips and salsa
and a loaf of Grandma Sycamore's white bread!

I took some liberty to make that little song work. 

But seriously. This is the third time in 4 years that we've received such an abundance on our doorstep, but this time the good elves revealed themselves. People are so good. Especially the people at Beehive Wireless whom Erik works for. They take such good care of him. He worked for them the summer before his mission and he impressed them so much then that they immediately hired him back. 

Erik joined the COVID club and Beehive wanted to make sure he was taken care of EVEN THOUGH he lives with his parents who are pretty capable people. We put Erik and Ash (she had a slight fever) in isolation for a week until tests came back. Tyler, Alex, and Ash negative. Erik positive. I opted out since I had no symptoms and it had been 9 days since Erik's exposure when they all decided to test.

His symptoms were a mild cold.

Satan sure unleashed a good one this year. The "last days" always conjured up images of war and fires and earthquakes and drought . . . Okay that pretty much sums up this year if you consider civil unrest and rioting as a form of war. However, I never imagined something so small could take down an entire planet. I never dreamed I would be wearing a mask and hiding from people. I never imagined the backlash among friends and neighbors that could come over "to wear a mask or not to wear a mask."

If Satan's intentions were to create division, he's sure done a pretty good job. Even within my own home this past week it's been pretty divisive and ugly at times. That is not the Lord's way.

I've never been more grateful for the presence of the Holy Ghost in my life as I have been this year in navigating some pretty turbulent times. I know the decisions I make with regards to my own health and the health of my family have brought peace to me. I've received that quiet witness that we're going to be okay. That is the Holy Ghost confirming that my decisions are good ones. 

I choose to live by faith, not fear.

I'm also grateful for a prophet I can look to for guidance. Our government leaders at times have asked us to do some hard things. One of the articles of faith that I live by is that I believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. President Nelson also lives by this article of faith because I've watched him as he too quietly obeys, honors, and sustains these government mandates.

There is hope. There is victory around the corner. 2020 has certainly been a year of ups and downs. For our family, the ups far outweigh the downs. 

Be a pineapple: Stand tall. Wear a crown. And be sweet on the inside.

Happy endings and beginnings

 “I don’t know how to speak about heaven in the traditional, lovely, paradisiacal, beauty that we speak of heaven – I wouldn’t know how to speak of heaven without my wife, my children. It would, it would not be heaven for me.” 

-- Elder Jeffrey Holland

These past couple of weeks have been pure bliss.

We prepared our home for Erik's return.

Kiersten came home with baby Oliver from Denver, and then we picked up Erik from the airport late one night. There is nothing that quite prepares you for welcoming home a child who's been away for a time. I imagine this is what leaving this world might be like.

Oh, how we missed that boy of ours. This was the last photo I took of him as we dropped him off at the MTC 2 years ago,

and this is one I snapped of him returning. Looks like same suit with a few more wrinkles and a bit more faded.

Bright and early the next morning we met at the stake president's office to release Erik and set apart Nate as a missionary before Nate entered home-MTC later that day. President Child commented how this was a first for him . . . having two missionary brothers coming and going on the same day.

Nate's P-day happened to coincide with Tyler's birthday later that week where we spent the morning at the zoo with ALL our children.

Sunday was Erik's homecoming talk and Oliver's baby blessing with family photos afterwards.

Photo courtesy Brian Leary

Photo courtesy Brian Leary

Photo courtesy Air and Ember Photography

Photo courtesy Air and Ember Photography

My heart has been so full. There are still good things to come.

Updates

Good grief! What happened to January? It just sorta mushed into February.

Alex
He's been thick in the middle of basketball practices and games.

How many basketballs can you spot? Did you get 'em all? Are you sure? This year we tried out the Stansbury basketball league instead of Jr. Jazz in Grantsville.

He's getting taller, but I don't think he'll catch his friend Chris anytime soon.

At the beginning of January he took his Hoop Shoot free throw skills to the next level in Heber. Watching those young kids warm up set my nerves on fire for him. They were good and they weren't missing.

But . . . 

Hold on . . . 

They didn't have nerves of steel. And Alex did.

He ended up taking 2nd class place, making 21 out of 25 free throws. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!! Unfortunately, the first place winner made 22 and he got to go on to Provo. Alex still came home with a trophy (that we have yet to see since they forgot them) and a free lunch out of the deal.

Clutch. That's what we call him now.

Ashlyn
Ahhh Ash. Just livin' the dream of hangin' with friends just about every night and trying to pass biology tests and dancin' her feet away in ballroom class and splitting knees open in gym class

and studyin' for her learner's permit.

Nate
Wait! I have a son Nathan? Are you sure? I know someone sleeps in his bed and the truck is gone most days, but . . . Hmmmm?

Nate is home long enough to shower and sleep. He has mostly college classes during the day, comes home to McDonalds, basketball or tennis after that.

The kid is rarely home. He did get asked to Winter Ball by cute Hannah.

Sunday mornings are mission prep and then straight to our ward to play prelude or postlude on the organ. Monday nights he teaches a few piano lessons.

Erik
Elder Leary is just doin' his thang, teachin' and preachin' and hangin' with celebrities like Alex Boye.


He's had some great experiences, great companions, played a little tennis and will be home in September.

We even made sure he got in on the yearly height check-in. I'm pretty sure he hasn't grown much this year.

Kiersten
Soon she'll be able to add UVU alumni to her list of accomplishments. Wahoo!! Once a week she travels out here to teach piano lessons.

She still works at Curves in Lehi, tries to keep up Grandma Ellis who had part of the driveway already shoveled, 

incubates baby Oliver for a few more months,

and finds time to be in an institute choir . . . once in awhile . . . like when they have a devotional broadcast to the world.

She and Jason are doing well.

Tyler and I have started a Master Gardener's class that is 12 weeks long and something that has been on our bucket list for a number of years.

Week one was about plants.

This past week was about soils. On our daily walk around the block I was so excited to see the layers of soil. What a nerdy thing to get excited about (and don't ask about the straw in that hole. We have no idea why and have never seen anything like it.)

Yes, we walk just about every day. January has been such a dichotomous month in regards to the weather. You'd expect cold and snow, but it's been quite the opposite. My daily routine is a walk around one block at 6:30 in the morning. I call it my daily walk with God and takes me 11 minutes. After work and school, Tyler and I usually take another walk around a different block to catch up on the day. And Saturday mornings are a 5 mile run at 6:30 in the morning and then off to a basketball game. Boy do I catch some beautiful sunsets and moon settings. Watching the world wake up and drift off is quite spectatular.

My friend Claudia took this on our walk.

The start of February was another beautifully warm day. So much so that we took advantage and biked and bladed the Jordan River Parkway.

Monday we woke up to this. Our second major storm of the year.

Luckily it was just delayed start for school (so no make up) AND I got to try my snowblower again on our driveway and the neighbors.

Our dishwasher also bit the dust taking me back to my childhood when we had five dishwashers. Yeah, that's right 5. Five kids who washed and dried by hand. So this week I've gone from 1 dishwasher to at least 2 or 3. How lucky am I :)

Our quasi snow day also meant more people on Erik's weekly call home.


And like Porky Pig always said at the end of every Looney Tunes show "That's all folks!"