our summer

First of all, there is this:

So naturally, there has been a lot of this: 

Because I am dead tired and nauseated all. the. time. But that's how it goes.

There has also been this:

Which I never get tired of. Even if our swamp cooler is marginal at best and it is stinking hot. I am not complaining.

And there is all of this:

So overall, I am not complaining. Life is good, my friends. Life is good.

30

The family at Mount Rushmore

My 30th birthday came and went last month. It was just 5 days after we arrived into town and we spent the day with my sister Shari, who bought Muppet cupcakes and let the kids pick out presents for me (Mary Poppins and a swimsuit that didn't quite fit. :) ) and then our niece watched the kids in the evening while Dave and I enjoyed an Arctic Circle milkshake.

Many woman I know dread the big 3-0, but I welcomed it. It seems like the threshold of adulthood. Sure we have been married 9 years with 3 children and have been living on our own and being all independent and stuff, but NOW I am an adult.


I remember this woman that I used to babysit for. In fact I traded piano lessons for babysitting. Now I think she was getting a great deal, but I was happy to do it at the time. She had all these little kids and was so confident and laid-back. Her oldest was probably Ana's age at the time, maybe a little older. *  I think of her quite often now. I am sure she wasn't perfect. Her house usually needed to be tidied up a bit, like mine, but she sure didn't seem hung up on it and pre-occupied and apologetic of it like I am. I want to be like her. She was so comfortable with who she was that she never seemed ruffled by appearances.  She was just real and genuine and happy. Being around her made you feel good.  My goal for my 30s is to be like that.  I probably won't ever be as laid back as she was, but I can be just as comfortable with who I am.  I don't have to seek for the approval of others. I can just be me.

This doesn't mean that I subscribe to the "This is how I am, take it or leave it" philosophy because I absolutely don't. I believe people can change and should strive to be Christlike and kind and that everyone should have worthy and attainable goals that we are working towards. In the strength of the Lord we can accomplish great things and become better, even different, people.

But I do believe we can be comfortable with who we are along the process of progression. It is a process. Seeking others' approval, passive-aggressive behavior, and defending my actions (or inactions) along the way don't help me change. In fact they inhibit real, true growth. 

So the question is, How? What am I going to do differently in my 30s? I can't do what I have always done, react as I have always reacted, speak as I have always spoken, and somehow expect to feel differently. I think I found at least part of the answer in a conversation with my mom a couple weeks ago. We were talking about people who always uplift those around them and how we want to be like that. They are gracious and kind. And they are also comfortable with who they are. So perhaps the more we seek to love others, the more comfortable we become with who we are because we no longer are seeking their approval. Our focus becomes outward instead of inward.

Songwriter Hilary Weeks said, "Don't worry about what others think of you. Worry about what others think of themselves when they are with you." And while I realize that I can't take responsibility for how others feel about themselves, I can seek to lift. I have realized that the more I seek to gain the approval of others, the more I offend them. But if I am focused on building others up, we are both elevated. Maybe that's off the subject, but I know that my friends that I am closest with, the ones that  I know absolutely accept me and love me, the ones I feel totally in my element around, are the ones that I stopped trying to impress long ago and started to just genuinely love and care for them. They are the ones who have been vulnerable around me, and I them. We dropped our defenses and simply loved each other. (That doesn't mean we always agree. Some of those friends have very different opinions about lots of different things than I do. We can have discussions and debates about things and go away every bit as friends.)

So here's to my 30s. I think they will be good. I don't know if by the time I am 40 I will be able to check this goal off my list of "things to accomplish" but I think the perspective is a good start. 

*That girl I used to babysit now has a kid. Weird.

making a house a home

This last weekend we went up to Idaho for a few days. We went fishing with Dave's brother, celebrated Jack's birthday, stayed up way too late, and went to church in our old Rupert ward. It was wonderful.

By the time we were driving home last night a vague homesickness set in. Usually after a trip, the drive home feels like a relief, but this time it didn't. Our walls are still bare. I still haven't unpacked my boxes of books (something that always makes me feel more at home) and it is strange that my calendar is relatively empty. It doesn't quite feel like home yet. It will. I love our new neighborhood and our house is great. We got a new couch that I really love. But I am still figuring out where to put things and how to organize stuff and all of that. It takes time. I know it does.

I had a dream the other night that we were done with residency and it was time to move again and I couldn't believe it had gone so fast and I felt like we had just barely moved and I couldn't bring myself to do it again. It has been an exhausting journey, even though it is exciting. Transitions can be hard.

The night before we left Vermont I lay our our little cot in our mostly empty house. Four years before I had done the same thing, and our empty house felt full of promise and hope for the future. This time, though all of our stuff was packed tightly (very, very tightly) in our moving truck, the house didn't feel empty at all. It felt full of ghosts. The ghosts of our memories that filled the house to the brim. Memories of Christmas mornings and lazy Sunday afternoons and the smell of lilacs through the windows and dinners with friends and so many other wonderful things that happened in that house. It was a four year process of making that house a home. And I cried.

The same with happen with this house. We will fill it with so many memories that in a few short years when we pack it up I will cry. And it will feel like home.

May 2014 - Last day

July 2010 - First day in our new home

Dr. Larsen

This month as been a big month for us.  We celebrated our 9th anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa came to Vermont, we packed, we moved across the country and to round it out, tomorrow is my 30th birthday. But of all of those things, the biggest and best day of them all was this day:

This was the reason we moved to Vermont in the first place, the reason we have so many wonderful friends, and came to love one of the most beautiful places on earth. We went so Dave could be a doctor. And now he is! I am so proud of him for all the work he did over the last 4 years. Time flew by. I always say that I am amazed at all the stuff he knows now that he didn't know 4 years ago. He was a stellar student, and yet still managed to be there for us as his family and for his friends and for our church family. I am so lucky to call him mine!

Congrats, Dr. Larsen!

My thoughts have been a swirling mass in my head. So many times over the last 2 weeks I have thought, "I need to write." But with graduation and moving and all the emotional and physical energy those things take, I found that I had little left for writing. I don't usually like to play catch up when is write because I feel the raw emotions I felt at the time are lost in retrospect. But there are too many things that I missed and I can't possibly skip them. So I will do my best over the next few weeks to look back over this crazy month with as much authenticity as I can.

Right now I am sitting in a mostly empty house that we will call home for the next little while. We pulled in last night and the kids ran around excitedly and I walked more slowly taking it all in. I am excited for the chance to make this little home our own. Change is always hard and strange. Vermont was so incredibly good to us. My one consolation is that do many people that we love have ties to Utah. Not to mention all of the family and friends that I have that live close by.  I am confident that it will be wonderful.

The sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky. We have a beautiful view of the mountains and a home to fill to the brim with love and memories. I think I am gonna like it here.

quebec, quebec city - come on *

I know, you were all expecting a mother's day post. I should write something poetic about all the mothers in my life or my mother or what being a mother means to me. I may still, but not tonight. I tried to do this post a few days ago but my internet was being weird. Seriously, though, this month is slipping by like sand through my fingers. The harder I try to grasp it the faster it is going. 

Anyway....

For spring break we planned on taking the whole the week to go to New Hampshire, Maine and then up to Quebec City. But we ended up shortening our last trip to just Quebec City. We went with some of our very best friends, the Dahles. I wish I got a picture of all of us together, but somehow that didn't happen. It was an awesome trip. Good friends, good food and a great place to enjoy it all. Luckily for us, we had a french speaker among us, which made this so much better, because I get awkward when I can't understand what people are saying. We walked a lot, but the kids did great. Saturday was rainy, so we didn't do quite as much that day, but it was still awesome. On Sunday we went to mass at a super old church, which was really cool.

And now, the pictures:

on the road. Dave is wearing my sunglasses. teehee.

Skinny alley

yummy Moroccan restaurant

Cool mural (on the right) and street

Quebec city is the only walled city in North America outside of Mexico This is part of the wall

The hotel Frontenac. This is wear D-day was planned.

From another angle

playing on the cannons

Cool walking street

Katie walked or was carried the whole time.

We stopped and let the kids play at this little park for a while.

Katie filled her shoes with sand.

There was still lots of snowpiles around

Happy

The kids loved the diorama and video about Quebec City at the Musee Du Fort.

A panoramic view of the diorama

Inside the hotel du Frontenac

We got yummy pastries at this little bakery. Look in the window. :)

Cool little street with Frontenac in the background

Cool square and church.

The kids. I am pretty sure they walked on every ledge in the entire city.

The Church where we went to Mass celebrates their 350th anniversary this year. The Vatican gave them a Holy Door to commemorate. It was really cool. You could only use it to enter the church and it had its own sanctuary.

A tiny picture of Katie and Dave giving thumbs up during lunch. So cute!

So there you have it. Quebec City was awesome and was my first real international experience. I have been to Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, but they felt very American. Quebec City totally does not. It was awesome and we made some great memories. Of course the kids just wanted to swim in the hotel pool the whole time, but I think they had an all around good time. What a way to wrap up our time here in the east.


*The movie Planes has a song in it where they rap "New York, New York City, Come on." My kids changed to words and sang it over and over the whole trip.