So, have we accomplished *anything* on the Summer Bucket List? Well, so far, we've had the cousins over... and Maddie got lost. I think we'll have to find some sort of GPS tracker for her, as that's the 2nd or 3rd time in as many days. That's a lot of lost for that girlfriend! (And a lot of stress for her mama).
    We've done a LOT of swimming! The kids are LOVING the swimming lessons! See the Instagr.am photos on Facebook for how much fun that has been! Darth Maximus swore he was NOT going to dive into the "deep deep" and then after he was successful once, he was volunteering to dive 1st. He's mostly a pest in the swimming pool. He's always got his hand up, either to splash his ever-patient teacher, or to volunteer to drive her absolutely crazy. He's cuter than a bug's ear, but he'll also pester people until he gets whatever he wants. I do hope he improves his swimming. He's mastered floating, but he's not mastered the significant strokes yet. He'll definitely be repeating Level 3.
     Asa and Seth are doing well in Level 4, but their teacher is not super strong, or else Asa has regressed a LOT since the end of the year. Asa will definitely be repeating Level 4. Asa is really patient in the pool, and he really enjoys being in the water. His best experience in swimming was last summer when he was in a class by himself, by accident. Not sure how it happened, but he learned more in those 2 weeks than he did the entire rest of the summer. Great teacher, great experience.
     Jax and Xanni are both diving this time. Jax is getting the diving (still having a hard time not doing the flip with the dive), but Xan is having a harder time. Xan doesn't like going head first into the pool. They each have 3 more days until the first test.

     Back to the bucket list.
#5 I did make home-made popsicles. The kids LOVED them. :)
#11 The kids started cooking classes.
#22 The dad took them on a hike to a lake in the Uintahs. Again, LOVE.

Next on the list (This week)
Track & field
Strawberry Days

Busy being busy!

    The Dork Dots have already been busy this summer. They've been swimming every day, and Jax, Xan, and Ace are running track.
     If you're following us on Facebook, you already know that Ace likes the 50 yard dash (he kinda lopes :), loves throwing the javelin, and does the standing long jump. Xan runs the 100 and 200 (if forced). She also long jumps. Jax runs the relay (he likes to run the last leg), the 100m, and the running long jump.
     The kids are taking swimming again. Although Jax & Xan tried out for swim team, there were a limited amount of kids allowed on the team. We didn't get them on the list soon enough (we didn't realize how important early sign up was on the day sign-ups opened). They both swam well, but there just wasn't enough spots in the pool! Of course, because they are all fish, they adore being in the pool.
      Ace and Max are both playing baseball. Ace is playing coach pitch and Max is playing t-ball. We're at the field every day watching some sort of a game. Both boys get to wear yellow t-shirts, which is fun to have the same uniform.
     Other exciting things that have happened were that Jax turned 12! He's been excited to be a Deacon and pass the sacrament. He had nightmares about passing (in one his tray had both bread AND ham, YUM!) His first Sunday went very well. He's even been out collecting fast offerings. It's great to be a 'tween!

      Jax and Xandri have also had fun with friends having late-nights. Everyone (but mom) is in love with Daisy the Dog. We're still trying to train the beast. :) I guess we still have most of the summer, right?

The Summer Bucket List

Every summer since the kids were tiny, I've kept the kids busy. The summer I taught school, I hired Miss Rachel from the day care to come run them through the paces and the lessons I created. I'd leave her activities in a box, and she'd take care of them for the hours I was gone.

Last summer, Jen and I had trouble finding enough fun activities for the kids now that they span ages 4-12. They're starting to be interested in many, many things and need things that will work for all ages. This year, we also have a 2 year old to add to the mix.

This year, I've joined the "Summer Bucket List Challenge" at The Happy Family Movement. I've also pinned over 100 things to do with the kids... Summer and just regular things on Pinterest. I think I've come up with a partial bucket list, in no particular order:

1. Animals
1. Feed ducks
2. Visit horses
2. Bill Nye the Science guy! Science projects
   • make slime
   • make playdoh
   • blow up a bar of soap
   • diet Coke & Mentos experiment
   • create "fireflies"
   • make our own crayons
   • Liquid sidewalk chalk--have chalk festival at the park
3. Canada T-shirts for the Canada trip
4. Dog training
5. Eat something new (you've never tried before)
6. Fireworks
7. Games
• Blowing bubbles
• Buckets & Beanbags
• Kickball
8. Homemade Rootbeer
9. Ice cream somewhere fun
10. Jogging/Track & Field 
11. Kitchen/cooking classes
12. Lego day--have Lego contest & make Lego soap containers
13. Movie Day!  BRAVE --see it when it comes out
14. National Park free admission day June 9th!
15. Olympics
16. Parades
• Raymond
• Strawberry Days
17. Quiet study time
• reading 
• mazes 
• handwriting 
• spelling practice
18. Read at the Library
19. Star Wars! 
20. Time Capsule of summer
21. Unwind at 7-Peaks
22. Visit a completely new place
23. World culture (Ratatouille anyone?)
24. X eXplore at least 3 new parks
25. Y go to the Museum of Modern Art at the "Y"--Free Admission! Festival there June 15-16.
26. Zoo!

Any ideas? What else should I put on my list?

Perhaps Forever...

I have been preparing for this talk very probably my entire life. My hometown is a tiny town in Canada called Raymond, population of about 3,000 people. It was settled in 1901-2 by a group of pioneers who'd come from a group of pioneers in Utah, who had come from a group of pioneers all over the world to settle the west.  Willa Cather  in O, Pioneers  said this: "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."


I had learned from staying with my grandmother over the summers about my family history. She took me all around town and showed me the little houses where my relatives lived, where Grandma Lizzie's tent had been the first winter after coming from Heber on a train that only traveled 15 miles an hour--so slow she could get off the train to pick flowers and then catch up! Her husband's parents, Ri and Briggs arrived the next year. They had been married in the Endowment House by Joseph F. Smith.


These people are still real to my grandmother. She grew up with them, and she was invited on her mission by David O. McKay. She met many of the living General Authorities of the church prior to her mission in 1944 while preparing to go on her mission and staying in Salt Lake City. She can describe the mannerisms of the Presidents of the Church back to Heber J. Grant, which is fascinating to me, because she met them, knew them personally.


My grandmother was a pioneer, accepting a call to serve a mission to the Southern California Mission from David O. McKay who was visiting Southern Alberta. In California, she met a young missionary. He'd been told he'd never have children because of the tremendous childhood illnesses he'd encountered. His grandfather was Elder McKay's best friend. Obviously, I believe Elder McKay's invitation to my grandmother was inspired. In 1994, my brother was called to serve in the same mission as my grandparents, exactly 50 years later in another piece of inspiration. To those returned California missionaries, my father was born in 1950, and 11 months later my grandfather died, leaving his little family to pioneer on. Her whole town took care of her on a tiny street in a tiny town in Canada.


My parents met and married in that town and then pioneered on, moving to the United States in 1979, where my dad opened his own family practice and they raised 5 children. It was hard being so far away from loved ones, but it was wonderful to be in the heart of Utah. We learned to find our family here, and we discovered people we weren't as familiar with who became dear to us. That's what pioneering and sacrifice is all about.


"As pioneers in latter-days" our pioneering looks different. The path isn't next to a slow train picking wild flowers along the way. However, my husband will attest that having a sick spouse in 2011 isn't much different than having one in 1949. It's just as hard. The medicine is different, but the sacrifices are about the same. It still takes a village and a ward to raise children. He'll also attest that children were every bit as miraculous in 2000, as my father was in 1950.  We feared that we'd never have children. It took 9 tries to get our 4 children. They are miraculous to us. Perhaps it's the perspective on pioneering that makes it appear so amazing... or the cost in health or sleep.


Henry David Thoreau said that the cost of something was measured by "how much life you have to give to it." The core of the Relief Society teaches us in Corinthians to be long-suffering, giving up "all that we have,"  so that we can be more Christ-like. Taking upon ourselves the manner of Christ because "Charity Never Faileth" and neither does God.


Sometimes, when we're pioneers, we want to throw in the towel. We want to wave an entirely *different* banner. We want to wave the white flag of defeat. Instead, we must rush headlong into battle remembering the sacrifices that we have already made. Why do we get up every morning? What makes it worth it? Why are we here? What is the ultimate goal? What are the promises we make ourselves when we look in the mirror? What makes it possible for you to "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"?


Francis Scott Key asks it in the Star Spangled Banner. "Oh, Say does that Star Spangled Banner still wave?"  Dylan Thomas urges people to "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,"  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. People speak out against the designated hitters. Will you be a pioneer in this age? In this day? Will you be as David O. McKay asked and be a pioneer? For behold, the field is white and ready to harvest and lo, the time is upon us. Choose your great work and embrace it:


Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!



Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!* (poem by Walt Whitman, extremely edited)


Be a pioneer today. 

I have been changed for good...

Today was graduation at Timpanogos High School, and it was my 18th graduation as a teacher. 18. Time flies by so quickly, effortlessly at times. We had a student this year, named as our most influential student of 2011: Brayan Melgar. He didn't live to be recognized at graduation, and we held a special graduation for him earlier this spring knowing this would probably be the case.

Catching me out of the blue was the tribute for him, a lovely video montage using the song "For Good" from Wicked. It was the same song used when my brother David died. We used it in the video montage, and my sisters Jen and Kristen sang it right before we closed Dave's casket.

"It well may be that we may never meet again in this lifetime.

So let me say before we part.

So much of me is made from what I learned from you.

You'll be with me, like a hand print on my heart."

This is what we had inscribed on David's headstone. We had the complete lyrics printed on the back of David's program, and the lyrics "Who can say if I've been changed for the better?" really bothered me for a long time. I wondered if I had been changed for the better. Certainly I knew there was blame to share on my part.

I visited Dave's grave often. Perhaps as often as twice a week for at least a year, maybe as long as 18 months. I mourned him intensely, mourned my inability to bend, to forgive, to grieve completely, to heal. So much of what I became as a person in the ensuing years was from what I learned in that process: that loving people, reaching out to them, being open to who people are, forgiving people the trespasses they have, and I have, comes from clearing the air and asking forgiveness for the shared blame.

I learned that mourning never stops. I'll never stop missing David. I see him in the small boy at my dinner table who is so like him. David would adore the boy who calls himself Maximus. They are very possibly the same child, the boy I remember David being and the boy I tell stories to as I snuggle in bed at night. But, because I have learned, because of the hand prints David left on my heart, I know to enjoy those moments in snuggles. Because I knew David, I have changed the way I look at those moments.

I do believe I have been changed for the better: changed for good.

Piano Recital

Jack, Xan and Asa have piano recital tomorrow at 6:30 pm at the Tahitian Noni Bldg in Provo. The address is 333 W River Park Drive. You are all invited if you want to come!

Jackson turns 11

We've got a new BBQ, we've got a boy turning 11, and we're ready to PAR-TAY!

Please join us to celebrate about 6:30 on May 9th for the event. 

Jack and Xandri have track until 6pm, and we'll commence grilling.

Please join us...

Jackson told me that he wasn't going to write on the blog anymore, so I guess it's not Jack and Jill. It's just me.

Please join us

Wednesday

March 30th

6:30pm

at our church 

1250 East 200 South, Pleasant Grove (program it into your GPS)

for the awarding of Jackson's arrow of light.

We're planning something phun and unusual, in our regular Phippen-esque way.

Requiescat in pace Rex

in the still of the night it catches me
silent
alone
it sneaks in on teardrops
in blue eyes and blond hair
in your child like mine
your king
born the summer of mine
your first son
my last
every mother’s fear unites us
your pain
your tears are mine tonight
as my king sleeps in his bed
and your son’s is empty
such unspeakable loss
unimaginable
at only 3
when everything should be possible
and beautiful
but it is dark
and night
and my heart breaks
“Good night, sweet prince!”
the infinite stars await beyond
I mourn
knowing you count the ineffable moments between now
and when you can be reunited
those moments determined not by your king
but by The King
and we wait

Singing into the Darkness

Once upon a time life was simple. I was a child, and I worried about childish things, and I worried of simple things. Then, when I grew, my worries grew, and the people I loved grew, and the joys and the sorrows grew exponentially. One of the most spiritual moments of my life occurred in early spring when I took my children to stand with me in the choir room at Orem High. We stood as members of past choirs sang "Go Ye Now in Peace," the quintessential choir song that every OHS choir member learns as the ending piece of all choir concerts (ever).

I had lost my way. I had lost my light. I had lost all hope, all focus, my raison d'etre. I was floundering at sea: "Abandon all hope, for here be monsters" and there we were, standing in the room where I had met monsters, and we sang, I and a group of people I didn't know. We sang into utter darkness. The first time we sang I got through the song, but when they turned off the lights to record the song, I couldn't sing. The words swept me away, and I knew that we were singing into the darkness, and I knew why we were singing into the darkness. We were singing into the darkness to light the way, to illuminate the darkness, to remind ourselves that we create our own light because we carry our own light inside of us. God hasn't left us alone; He never leaves us alone. We sing into the darkness because we are the light under the bushel that cannot be hidden.

The past few days have been dark for me. I have been surrounded by death. My friends are walking separately through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and the shadows seem deep and dark. On Thursday, two of my friends lost children to accidental deaths, one of an overdose, and one to a tragic car accident where her 13 year old was hit at a bus stop. A third friend lost her daughter-in-law to a long fight with cancer. I also lost a fourth former student to suicide. These events weigh heavy on my heart. Separately, they take my breath away. Together, they make me weak and weary.

On a positive note, we got a chance to enjoy a wedding, and we have a friend who has a beautiful new son. I know that everything under the sun has a purpose, and that the Lord didn't send us here to fail. I'll continue to "sing into the darkness" because of the monumental moment I had this past spring. It was a life-changing experience. While I didn't see an angel, standing there with my children was pretty close. I knew that I had come full circle, one more time. I could walk away in peace and that the Lord was "there beside me" in those little people. This weekend, I am again reminded of how lucky I am to have my little people in my life.

Go ye now in peace, my friends. Sing into your own darkness and find your joy wherever it might be.