Adventures in Sunbeam Land

For the past nine months now I have spent two hours every Sunday trying to keep a dozen squirming three-year olds in their chairs and somewhat entertained.  It has honestly been a blast.  I love those little guys and they give me something to laugh about nearly every single Sunday.  When I first started we had 18 (yes, 18!) sunbeams in our class - 16 little boys and 2 little girls.  Every week was an adventure.  In January, though, we got a brand-new, fresh-out-of-nursery class of 6 little girls and 1 boy.

Together we learn very, very basic lessons every Sunday, such as "Heavenly Father has a Body" and this week's lesson, "I am thankful for Fish".

Here are just a few of the lessons I've learned from my Sunbeams:

Lesson 1:  The answer to everything is Jesus.  Doesn't matter what the question is.  While on a deeper level, I can philosophize about how wise it is to have Jesus as your answer to any question, I'm not convinced that my little guys are answering this out of wisdom.  For example, I once asked my class what animals they could think of that lived in trees and received the answer, "Jesus."  Um . . . let me ponder that one.

Lesson 2:  Three hours is too long for kids to go without food.  My very first week in Sunbeams one of my little boys came up to me at the end of class with the saddest look on his little face.  Sorrowfully, he told me, "Avery ate my paper" and held up his reminder slip that he was giving the prayer in primary next week.  Sure enough, his poor slip of paper was very soggy and looked like someone had taken a giant bite out of it.  Poor kid, life's rough when you have to guard you handouts for fear of other kids eating them.  Fortunately, we now have snack time every week and this has dramatically cut down on the eating of non-food items in our classroom.

Lesson 3:  A promise from a three year old is not very binding.  Just last week we had a lesson entitled "I am thankful for Plants, Trees, and Flowers", and since the weather was so nice I decided to take my little girls on a trip outside to look at all the plants and flowers we could see around the church.  Before we left the classroom I made them promise me that they would not leave the grass and would not go into the street.  After I had extracted a promise from every single one of them, we proceeded down the hall to the door and no sooner did I open it for them then one of them immediately took off running, straight for the street.  Fortunately, Marc was my co-teacher that week so he chased her down while I was able to keep the other five little girls enthralled finding pine cones.

Lesson 4:  The difference between boys and girls.  My little boys were INSANE.  There were times when we'd arrive in our classroom to find a dozen boys, all climbing up on the chairs and jumping off of them while making explosion and fighting noises.  However, when once told to do (or NOT do) something, they were pretty quick to respond and happy enough to do it.  Imagine my surprise when during the first week with our new little class of girls I told one of them that she could not stand on the chairs, only to have her burst into tears and spend the rest of the class time in hysterics.  Since then I've learned that I have to be a LOT more gentle with my little girls because they are simply so much more sensitive.  Even still, we have at least one crying fit every single Sunday when one of them doesn't get their way.  I miss my wild little boys.

Lesson 5:  The concept of honesty is impossible for three year olds to understand.  We once had a lesson entitled "I can be honest."  To begin my lesson, I spent a fair amount of time trying to impress upon them what a truth was versus what a lie was.  It was a timely lesson - the very first attention-getting activity we did was play Button Button, Who's Got The Button, and the very first child (who did NOT have the button) that got asked if he had it giggled and said, "Yes!"  Of course, that was hilarious to all the children, so they all responded in turn that Yes, they had the button, until it got to the little boy who actually had the button, and he responded that, No, he didn't have any button.  Even after an hour's worth of teaching and explaining, though, they still just couldn't grasp the concept of what truth/lies were.  We played a game at the end where I would tell them a simple statement like, "Johnny's wearing a red shirt today" or "We came to church today" and they would stand up if it was the truth, and with every single statement they all just stared at me in confusion.  By the end of the lesson I concluded that three years old is simply too young to understand something as complex as "truth."

Lesson 6:  Learn to keep a straight face.  My very first week in Sunbeams, a week after Marc and I got married, we were in the middle of a lesson about temples when one of the little boys suddenly started screaming at the top of his lungs, "The bad guys are coming to steal Jesus' body!" over and over and over again.  No amount of soothing from the other teacher could dissuade him from this idea, and I have to admit that I wasn't much help, as I was having difficulty keeping a straight face while she kept trying to explain to him that there were no bad guys in the temple.

The path that led me here

Exactly one year and one week ago, the love of my life returned home from a one year deployment in Afghanistan.  Words cannot express what I felt on that day when we were reunited, but I attempted it anyway.  What follows is a blog post that I wrote at the end of that day, Jan. 20, 2013, but which I have never shared until now.  Dedicated to Marc, who still fills me with excitement at the prospect of seeing him again anytime we're apart for more than two minutes.

I stood anxiously scanning the hundreds of faces around me, searching for one particular and very familiar one.  Somewhere within that crowded hangar was the man I love. 

I first fell in love with him almost two and a half years ago.  He won my heart so completely that it scared me how deeply I cared for him, and I reacted by pushing away.  When we broke up I somehow managed to convince myself that it simply wasn't meant to be, and over the course of the next year then I tried to convince myself that I had moved on.  It wasn't until a year later that I dared crack open again the heart I'd sealed up so carefully to see what was inside and the depth and truthfulness of that love came rushing out to hit me in the face. 

I knew that a difficult decision now lay before me, and that in choosing one of those paths I would have to lay bare my heart and risk having it crushed completely.  But I also knew that I would never forgive myself if I didn't take the risk and make that choice.  So I took a deep breath and took the leap of faith, emboldened as only those who are in love can be.  But things did not exactly go as planned and a few short weeks later I found myself saying goodbye once again, unsure of where we stood and if there was even any point in trying to continue.  He was headed to Afghanistan and it would be another year before I would even see him again.  The path that had once been so clear and straight now seemed completely overgrown and blocked by fallen trees.  But again, I remembered the promise that I had made myself when I first made the decision to begin this journey, and I knew that I could not give up until I had truly given it everything.  So again, I took a deep breath and continued the journey, fighting through the undergrowth and climbing over fallen log after fallen log.  For eight months I persevered, because every time that I would falter, discouraged by my lack of progress and on the verge of giving up, something inside me would call me back and remind me of what I was fighting for. 

Finally, in the ninth month since we'd said our goodbyes something changed between us.  I felt the change as soon as it happened and my heart leapt for joy inside.  I was only too eager to believe it, yet I was cautious, afraid that it might not be real.  Yet every day the little voice that whispered caution grew quieter and quieter.  Each day as we talked I could feel myself falling more in love with him all over again, until finally it reached a point where I knew that I was in very real danger of falling hopelessly and completely for him.  The last month, and especially the last two weeks, until his homecoming crawled by.  I knew that I was pretty deeply in love with him, yet I couldn't be certain how he felt or how things would be once he actually returned.

It had all come down to this moment.  I stood only ten feet from where the rest of his family stood, waiting to find him, yet we were separated by walls of people between us.  Anxiously I scanned the face of every soldier I saw, trying to find the one that had been ingrained into my memory.  Suddenly he appeared, only a few feet in front of me, and my heart skipped a beat.  For one moment I stood frozen, unable to believe that it was really him, and then our eyes met and I saw the light of recognition in his eyes.  I came unfrozen in an instant and threw my arms around him.  I could have stayed in his embrace forever, it felt so unbelievably good to have his arms wrapped solidly around me.

The rest of the day passed in a dream.  At times it seemed surreal, to have him actually there and to be walking and talking with him.  But at once it was also the most natural and comfortable thing in the world to be together with him, laughing and teasing.  Every time we touched, however briefly, my heart raced inside me. 

I know it's only the first day that he's been back, and so this might seem premature of me to say.  But I can't help myself - this has been a long time coming.  I love him, plainly and truly.  Being together with him feels undeniably right.  It has been an incredibly long and at times painful journey, but we have now reached the end of this path and the beginning of a brand new and exciting one.  I can't wait for what the future holds.  But for now, I'm content just knowing that tomorrow I'll get to see him again.

Cross that one off my bucket list . . .

There's an awesome underwater cave up in Logan, Utah called Ricks Spring.

That dark blue patch in the spring above is the entrance to the underwater cave, which has been explored up to 2200 feet down and contains incredible stalagmites and even an underground waterfall. 

Since I first learned of the cave's existence a few years ago, it has been on my bucket list to explore that cave.  And I can now say that I am crossing that one off my bucket list.

Not because I actually explored it though.  Nope - rather, it's because I found this video a couple of divers made as they were exploring it.  I got about five minutes into it when I became aware of a strange thing happening - I suddenly and inexplicably felt sick to my stomach and very claustrophobic.  It took me a minute to realize it because the sensations were not ones that I am very familiar with, but then it hit me that the physical queasiness and shakiness I was feeling were a direct result of one emotion:  fear.   

I know that I seem utterly fearless and adventurous most of the time.  I certainly have never been afraid of caves before.  But apparently underwater caves scare me to death - who knew?  Guess I'll be crossing that one off the bucket list for good . . . 

But for any of you that are braver than I am, here's the video that had such a dramatic impact on me.

http://www.wendellnope.com/ricks20091010small.wmv

Is it just me?  Did anyone else get all nervous watching this?

Happy Birthday!!

To my dear little sister

I love being your sister.  

I love all the adventures we've shared over the years . . . 

And we've had quite a few

I loved growing up with you.  

You were the best and cutest little sister.

I loved the hours I spent playing with my best friend every day.  

But even more I love being grown up with you.  

You have become a beautiful, smart, fun, and extremely talented woman.

I'm excited for you and the fun age at you're at, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

I love you and wish you all the very best on your birthday!

YES!!

Or, in other words, the short and illustrated story of how Marc and I took a giant leap toward the land of marriagedom.

On Saturday, Marc and I decided to take a hike up to Grandeur Peak.  We listened to General Conference all the way up and stopped to take pictures and generally had a good time.

We had gone ring shopping several weeks earlier, but had only decided on a ring on Wednesday, and I thought it would take a while to actually get the ring.  Plus, Marc had told me that he was going to fake me out at every possible opportunity before he actually proposed.  So in sum:  I truly did not think he was going to propose that day - in fact, I bullied him about it several times on the way up.

We finally reached the top of the snow-covered peak, and I teased, "Aw, too bad there's another guy coming up the trail behind us - guess you can't propose today after all."

"Yep, guess I can't propose today.  Hey, want to take a picture of us at the top?"  And Marc set up his little tripod and we posed for the picture.

Or so I thought . . .



My very romantic reaction as he took out the ring and was preparing to get down on one knee in the snow was, "Are you punking me?"  I truly thought that he was teasing me, and that he'd even gone to all the effort of getting a ring box.  It was not until he opened it that I knew he was serious.

I said yes.

"True love isn't easy, but it must be fought for.  Because once you find it, it can never be replaced."

Marriage Blues

Disclaimer:  I didn't actually write the following thoughts - I found them online and they described how I've been feeling so perfectly that I just tweaked it a bit and changed the names and here you have it:  an insider's look into exactly how I'm feeling at the moment.

She is my favorite person on earth, and the one who I feel is most deserving of all of the happiness that life has to offer. I couldn't wish for anything better for her.  So why now, as the big day creeps closer do I feel so strange about it?

There’s a voice in my head that I just can’t shake: this is it. This is the end of something. What you have with Marg won’t ever be the same again.

This is not about jealousy or disappointment with my own life. I’m happy, no question about it. What it is, I think, is a dread that my beautiful, brilliant friend – and our beautiful, brilliant friendship – will change when Marg becomes somebody’s wife.

It happens. Just about every friend I’ve ever had who gets married has said as much.

“Oh, I really didn’t expect it to, but it does feel so ... different.”

“Better” is what they mean. Better than before, when you were all they had. And the real knife-in-the-back implication: better than what you’re left with, you poor, unmarried creature.

So it’s not really about that. I don’t mind that Mark takes my place in the car and at get-togethers (well, I do, but a manageable amount). What stings is that he’s taken my place at the comfort table as well. When Marg has a miserable day at work, it’s Mark who hears about it.

And well he should be; he’s going to be her husband, for goodness sake. But while that makes me genuinely happy for her, it has also disturbed the careful balance of our friendship. The thing is, I used to be that person for Marg. If Mark takes over that role (and, let’s face it, it is inevitable that he will), where does that leave me?

If she doesn’t come to me with her stuff, how am I supposed to go to her with mine? She won’t need me anymore, but I’ll still need her. And that’s where the problem comes in.

So, am I losing her? Why does it feel like I am?

Like most women in possession of half a dozen brain cells, I understand that I’m not really losing my best friend to marriage. I know that the blush of being a newlywed will wear off and that she’ll soon start coming to me again. Maybe not for everything that she used to, but probably for a few new things, too.

I know that our relationship will change and make room for Mark and their eventual offspring, and all of this will be OK.

I get all of this. But I still feel weird about it. It’s like she’s moving on to some new stage in life and I’m lacking the pass to cross with her. She’ll be a wife. And with that title will come all sorts of respect and responsibility. And if she’s all that, then what am I? What if all the stuff that has bonded us until now can no longer sustain us? What if it gets swallowed up by wifedom?

Go ahead and tell me it sounds ridiculous. I know it does. But for the past 10 years, Marg and I have been the primary witnesses to each other’s lives. We’ve had other friends and our families, of course – it’s not like we’re maladjusted – but we were each other’s rocks. Now she’s got a new rock, and I’m in a hard place.

In some weird way, all of the romantic, everlasting love that Mark gives Marg trivialises what we feel for each other. Friendship is the only sort of love that has no standing in society. It doesn’t grant you access to a hospital room.  It doesn’t make missing persons appeals on TV. It’s not an emergency contact number. As far as onlookers are concerned, as “just” a friend you’re on the sidelines. And that’s just not fair. I was there first. What about us? Is “us” now less important than “them”?

And then it dawns on me: not less important, but different.

So here’s the conclusion I’ve reached: friendship, just like the rest of life, is a constantly changing thing. Although the essence of what connects you may remain the same, the relationship will continue to reinvent and remould itself.

And you can’t freeze it in time at a supposed heyday, clinging to the shards like an old woman mourning the lost beauty of her youth. You can only embrace it, love it and move with it, celebrating each metaphorical laughter line along the way.

That’s the way not to be left behind as your friend moves on. Besides, it’s not just you who’s scared.

“When I get married, will you assume I’m always busy with Mark and stop inviting me to places?”

I told her of course not, but the fact is, I don’t know. It could happen. In fact, it probably should happen.

I can only promise Marg what I’ve always promised her – that I’ll always be there for her if she needs me, that while our friendship will change as a result of external forces in our lives, it will never disappear because of them.

She may have become someone’s wife, but she’s still my best friend – and even if she and I are the only two who understand how fundamental that is...well, that’s enough.

This time I've been pondering the mysteries of the universe

Last night I had an amazing spiritual experience.

Background:  Last Saturday I went through the temple for the first time to receive my endowment.  The temple is an amazing place and the experience I had there was definitely a positive one.  However, as I've been pondering over everything the last few days since then I kept feeling a sense of . . . well, disappointment, because I'd been hoping to gain more insights and personal revelation in the temple, yet I found that I had even more questions than answers after going through the first time.

However, last night I had an incredible dream, or rather, series of dreams.  I went to bed around midnight and I had a dream about the temple.  In the dream my eyes were opened and I received answers to many of my questions.  I woke up at the end of the dream and my mind was extremely clear and sharp.  I remember just pondering, taking it all in for several minutes, feeling overwhelmingly excited and joyful.  I fell back asleep and again, I dreamed of the temple and this time my eyes were opened further and I received more light and understanding.  Again I awoke at the end of the dream and simply pondered everything for several minutes, taking it all in and reveling in the knowledge.  Several more times I fell back asleep and received greater understanding and woke up and processed it before falling back asleep again.  The last time I woke up (early this morning)  my mind was completely and utterly at peace (something that maybe has never happened before in my life since I am ALWAYS pondering something) - all the mysteries of the universe had been revealed to me and I understood everything perfectly.  I was filled with utter joy and wonder and excitement over all my knowledge.  I fell easily back to sleep one last time, utterly content and filled with peace.

I don't remember what I dreamed about that last time, or if I even dreamed.  When my alarm went off and I awoke this morning I could no longer remember any of the details of any of the dreams.  However, I remember very distinctly waking up each time and the feelings that I had as I pondered the mysteries that were revealed - and that is enough for me.  I don't think I was meant to remember any of the details or mysteries of the universe . . . yet.  But I am content, simply knowing that they do exist, that they are at once complex and simple and logical and beautiful, and that one day I will once again know them.