Waffles, wigglesticking, and WEB

Here's an unfinished one from a couple weeks ago. . . Still fun to read, hopefully!

August 13, 2023

Snowflake, Arizona

Dear Flammly,

Waffles in the park was great! (were great?) We did it in the evening, since DC had already gone back to work, and we invited Nana and Grandpa. After the waffles was wigglesticking on the basketball court -- the kids are amazing at that! I wish I could do it. I have tried, really hard, but I think I'm too old, plus too uncoordinated to begin with.

Then it was just the final stretch to school starting, and goodbye to our freedom. This summer felt exceptionally short to me, and I really wished there were another month or two still. 

But this year Rosehips is in 8th grade, and she served as a "WEB leader." WEB stands for Where Everyone Belongs; it means a group of 8th grade leaders help groups of 7th graders coming into the junior high to transition happily. 

I was so proud of this girl of ours! She made many phonecalls to actually talk, like out loud, not text, to people she had never met and invite them to orientation. She went to hours of training and preparation, and even taught us one of the games so she could practice with us. 

On Tuesday (the day before school started) she helped with a 4-hour orientation activity for the incoming 7th graders. And then on the first day of school she donned her yellow WEB leader shirt again and went early (well, she tried -- she actually had to wait on me because I forgot how early we'd need to have breakfast!) to help "sevvies" find their classes. What a gem she is! I loved seeing her ready to serve and reach out to people -- beautiful girl!

  

Dear Flammly, Thanks for raising your mom!

August 27, 2023

Snowflake, Arizona

Dear Flammly,

The past two weeks have been growing ones. I think I am growing up as a parent! It sounds ironic, but Elder Uchtdorf said: "And children, thank you for everything you’re doing to raise your parents, because as every parent knows, we often learn as much from our children about faith, hope, and charity as they learn from us!"

The last week before Ham left to go back to college was a strange combination of stressful and fun. Stressful for me, because I was worried about his being mentally healthy enough to live on his own again, and fun for all of us I think, because we did things "before you leave." 

Japanese and Spanish study. Exacto and I started studying Japanese with Memrise back in May, and Ham joined us during the summer. With Spanish I was also using Memrise but it wasn't proving super helpful. Maybe because of my unique background of growing up with hearing it tons but never studying enough to gain fluency. So I started just conjugating verbs, doing several each time I studied, and also reading Sapo y Sepo, Inseparables, and Ham helped me with both of those. His Spanish is amazing for only having a few semesters -- he studied a bunch with Nana and Grandpa during the pandemic and also has had Spanish-speaking friends over WhatsApp in Uruguay and Mexico. 

We helped with the annual Community Cleanup, picking up trash near Highland Primary. We did haircuts, with the traditional root beer floats afterward. We finished two books we'd been reading together-- The Door in the Wall, and The Year of Miss Agnes -- during a monsoon downpour while we sat on the front porch. Ham helped me for hours to figure out the best way to move pictures from my phone to the computer. He and Exacto have learned a ton about technology and programming lately, and it's coming in quite handy!

The night before we were taking him to Thatcher, Nana and Grandpa took us all out to dinner in H's honor, and he got to choose the restaurant -- Eva's! It was raining as we got there, and it was cozy to sit and eat hot, delicious Mexican food and be together. H and I shared a fried ice cream. Then we were so full we could hardly stand the thought of squeezing back into the car so we went for a walk in the twilight drippiness up Back Street, jumping over puddles and the river next to the curb. 

Saturday (8/19) Rosehips and Exacto stayed home (and spent some happy time with Nana and Grandpa) while DC and I drove with Ham the 3 hours and 15 minutes to Eastern Arizona College. He checked into his dorm room and my anxiety level, despite my best efforts, was considerably high. It felt like all the things that were wrong at the end of his last semester there were still wrong, and I was afraid he was going to slip back down into the low place he had fallen into then. I told him he didn't have to stay! He really wanted to, though, and tried to assure me it would be okay.

I went outside by myself (partly to avoid scantily clad young men who were needing to go from the showers to their room!) and prayed and read DFU's talk again. I started feeling calmer, and a thought came to me that I needed to look for the good. He does have a roommate now (he didn't last semester); the athletes and other people he's sharing the hallway with, although I perceive them as rough around the edges, are nice people; the institute program there is strong and thriving; he already has a job. . . 

We walked to the biology lab and luckily it was open, so DC got to meet the professor H works with and even see Jafar, the huge snake with an ominous lump in its middle, having just consumed a live chicken. We went to the institute building (beautiful!) and DC gave H a priesthood blessing. A feeling of deep peace and assurance came to me. Heavenly Father is aware. He loves us. All will be well.

We had dinner at La Casita, got a few things at Walmart (so fun to treat our college kids sometimes!), and then said goodbye back at the dorms. We drove home -- only if you have dropped off a young adult child to live far away from home do you know what this can feel like 😭 -- and talked and talked on the way. 

This first week back to just 4 of us at home was good! I settled more into my rouzine for this fall, and enjoyed the process of tweaking it and adjusting the balance. I'm always hunting for the perfect schedule for my days and I love trying different things out and seeing what works in this particular season.

We had a family birthday party celebrating the 47th birthday of Nana's and Grandpa's family. Grandpa served a delicious fancy dinner, and Aunt Amanda brought her famous chocolate cake and we even lit candles and sang to them. 

Did some work in the basement finally! The mice disaster down there is getting cleaned up, and I have hope again for that area of the house. 

There was lots more rain, including when we were supposed to be doing a water balloon Human Battleship activity for YW! (But the alternate activity of watching the Youth Music and Arts Festival at Danica's house with hot cocoa was really fun!)

Exacto and I had several nice runs on the Knoll Trail, including our first one to go the entire length of it. Also we are studying together on a free class from Yale called Moral Foundations of Politics that I am really loving, especially with E's help. He made some good progress on the dry-stack retaining wall in the backyard (it is beautiful!) and I got a maple tree planted in our flower bed. 

I was grateful to hear that H made it to all his classes that first day and was happy with them. And then Thursday evening he called and we talked for a while, and he told me not to worry, that he was doing well! Those things and my therapy appointment on Friday led to the realization that it's okay, I can grow up now. 

What you can and must do for the rising generation is provide rich, nourishing soil with access to flowing heavenly water. Remove weeds and anything that would block heavenly sunlight. Create the best possible conditions for growth. Patiently allow the rising generation to make inspired choices, and let God work His miracle. The result will be more beautiful and more stunning and more joyful than anything you could accomplish just by yourself.

I loved my date with DC on Friday night, going to the temple and then an adventure getting ice cream (Snowflake is crazier than you'd think on a Friday night!). And I loved our Saturday at home yesterday, especially lingering after breakfast to hear Rosehips and Exacto tell funny memories from when they were little, working with Rosehips on organizing her new tote with special papers, harvesting 5.7 lbs cherry tomatoes and roughly 127 lbs. of zucchini with Exacto, and a delightful video call with Fluffy, excited about our upcoming visit to Provo. 

Life is good. I love each of you with all my heart!

Mommy

Quotable
8/16
Grandpa, regarding sensitivity: "We need to be more like nectarines and less like peaches."

Dear Flammly, The reunion was great!

August 6, 2023

Snowflake, Arizona

Dear Flammly,

I've gotten to spend time with all of you during these last three weeks and I have LOVED it! Thank you for coming to visit for a couple weeks, Fluffy! Enjoying having Exacto here for a little while longer before he heads out for a research job and Ham for two more weeks until he returns to Thatcher for school. And so glad that Rosehips is only in 8th grade and we still get years with her home! 

It was a great Bailey reunion. We had my brother Russ and his kids and my brother Mark and his family sleeping here at our house, which was soooo fun. Actually one of the highlights of the whole reunion for me was having my little 3yo nephew H come out in the mornings, saying, "I sleep at Aunt Shell's house!" and sitting on the stairs and just chatting, etc. It was sooo sweet! 

DC and I slept in the brand-new basement bedroom that was just barely almost finished just in time. There's a ton of natural light down there for it being a basement room, and it was still nice and cool. (Our house has no central cooling system). 

The meals turned out fine, I think! There was a ton of help from my siblings and their families, and on Friday night we got Samoan food from a lovely local family with a food truck (The Best!). Some of my favorite foods we served: oven scrambled eggs and blueberry pancakes, funfetti bars, taco salad with lentil chili, biscuits and gravy, the cookout with hamburgers and hot dogs. . . okay, I'm fasting right now so I'd better stop! 🤤

Favorite activities: watching Emperor's New Groove outside on the grass and having Doug and Carmen bring us s'mores while we lounged (there I go again! 😂), NINE-SQUARE! (this has become an epic tradition at our reunions and this year did not disappoint), water balloon volleyball with our families as teams and then dodgeball, water bottle rockets with Grandpa and also his spoonerist fairy tales, the fun crossword puzzle my sister Mandy made with family names, the devotionals (especially Nana's and Heather's), pushing H on the baby swing at sunset, having E teach me how to play Slapjack, and just talking and talking with all those beautiful people I love so deeply.

This Bailey family we belong to has problems like everyone else. We don't all agree all the time (do we ever all agree? haha!) but we definitely love each other a lot. I think each one of us would do just about anything for any other member of the family. I am super grateful for the strength and influence of the adult members of the family on my children. Ham's cockroach habitat had interested visitors, and a couple of people helped him practice job interview questions for his interview at Sonic that happened during the reunion. There were late night conversations and hugs and real questions about life. So, so grateful for all of them!

Fluffy arrived with Uncle DJ and Aunt Heather's family the day the Bailey reunion started and he stayed about 2 1/2 weeks. I think home was just what he needed after a really tough few months.

He soaked in a ton of extended family time, especially with Mandy's family staying an extra week after the reunion. He went running with Grandpa (even came in 1st overall at the Pioneer Days 10K!), practiced the piano, and got his laptop all organized for the new semester (Exacto and Ham helped install Linux on it!). There were late-night cousin game nights and flammly scripture study and FHE and temple trips. It was just SO nice to have all my living children home for a while and to feel more connected as a flammly again!

We did lots with Nana and Grandpa and Mandy's family. . . Cover Your Cookies (always with real cookies at the end -- the loser picks first! :), marshmallow roasting at the firepit, ramada meals together (except when it was too hot), pickleball, the Rim Trail with lunch afterward at The House, swimming while watching Moana projected onto the wall, and Pioneer Days.

Pioneer Days in Snowflake are the biggest celebration of the year. Our little town of about 6000 swells by several more thousand as people come up from the excruciatingly hot Phoenix Valley and have huge family reunions and there's tons of activities for a couple of days. We went to the parade and rodeo (so fun!) and the Arts & Crafts Fair (we loved the Sonoran Scavengers booth and also the Hawaiian clothes - Mom bought me a huge comfy romper 😍). It was unusually hot -- we've had kind of a bummer monsoon season this year -- but we would nap and cool off then head out for more.

Exacto and I ran in the Pioneer Days 5K and Fluffy and Grandpa did the 10K. It was Exacto's first-ever official race, and I loved running with him! Even though the course was a bit brutal (rocky, hilly, sandy) we talked happily and saw the beautiful nature and the lovely view of the temple and it was really fun. 

Rosehips went with her older cousin A to the youth dance and had a really fun time too! (Until some kid threw a firework into the mosh pit. Not cool!) They both came home happy and telling all the details -- I loved it.

I came down with a nasty virus (or maybe it was bacterial after all?) the next Sunday and was coughing, having trouble sleeping, feverish / achy, ears clogged for the next few days. The fatigue and clogged ears have lasted a couple of weeks. Luckily I was only out of commission for a few days and was still able to get back to enjoying this precious family time soon. (Not like last year when I got covid during the only time Fluffy was visiting! 😓)

We had to delay it a couple days, but I was even still able to sing at our first-ever End-of-Summer Flammly Recital! The idea came from Tasia's family -- they practice their instruments all summer and then they all perform what they worked on. We performed at Nana's and Grandpa's house and invited Grandpa to perform on the piano, too. 

Here was our program for this first one:

DC - Bach E major partita movement Gavotte and rondeau - solo violin

Fluffy - Brahms A major intermezzo Op 118 No 2 - solo piano

Rosehips and me - The Lord is My Light (gorgeous setting by Rachel Mohlman) and Come to My Garden from "The Secret Garden" - vocal duet, with Fluffy accompanying and Ham page-turning

Grandpa - Promenade from "Pictures at an Exhibition" - solo piano

DC and me - Brahms sonata in G major, 1st movment - piano and violin, Exacto page-turning

The performance was really fun, but even more fun was the practicing to get ready! I really loved giving myself the time to do this. Usually I think that's for fun, and I should wait till all the work is done before I go play the piano or sing. But I could see how doing something creative like that every day, even before the work was done, brought me joy and more mental strength. I think it helped me be able to work better later! 

Also it was happy "bondy" time for me and Rosehips and me and DC and later with our accompanist and pageturners. 

More happy bondy time was doing "stowies" with my chilluns. Exacto and Rosehips and I finished The Hobbit and are now well into Fellowship of the Ring. DC and I also read together at night before going to sleep -- we've done it for years now -- and we finished Fierce Marriage, a book I gave him for Christmas. (I do recommend for Christian couples!) We're loving reading his Grandpa Green's letters from World War II, also. 

Rosehips and I have been steadily watching all of The Chosen and LOVING it! I was very skeptical at first -- I didn't ever plan to watch it -- I suspected it would be too casual a treatment of people / things that are sacred to me. But my friend Danica assured me that Jesus is always portrayed with respect and she thought I would actually really like the series. So we watched the first three episodes with Danica's family and then I watched some more with DC and now Rosehips and I have run ahead and are into Season 3. I really, really love it. Not every thing about it, but almost everything. It is so cool to see and think more about how Jesus might respond to little real life things. To see His unfailing love for every single person, even the annoying ones, portrayed. To see His disciples struggle with the same things I struggle with. I feel like it makes me think more often about Him and it makes His involvement in my  life seem more actual and real. 

There are many parts and quotes I love, but one of my favorite moments is from the episode with the man being lowered from the roof by his friends to be healed. It's a chaotic moment -- for the first time a large crowd is gathering to try to hear Jesus. Some are afraid it's about to cause the Romans to get involved and punish them. Some are Pharisees demanding answers to angry questions. And Jesus pauses to look up at one of the paralyzed man's friends, a woman from Ethiopia, who has been so desperate to get her friend to Jesus. He says to her: "Your faith is beautiful."

I know that the scriptures don't record Him ever saying those actual words. But I felt the Spirit tell me that He does feel that way. That our faith is beautiful to Him!

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Mommy

aka Michelle

P.S. Nana and Grandpa received their mission call two weeks ago, and it was strange but kind of appropriate to watch it over Zoom (due to my illness). We watched from the front porch as they read it -- Ecuador Guayaquil West Mission for 18 months, entering the Provo MTC on November 27! I am so proud of them, both for their willingness to serve and for the talents and strength they will bring to their service! I'm sure I'll share more thoughts as we get closer to their departure.

Quotables

7/27 - After Fluffy finished playing his Brahms intermezzo at the flammly recital, we paused because of the sheer beauty of it, then clapped. Ham: "I almost said amen!"

7/11

Ham: "My brain is as tired as a 10-year-old Chromebook. . . .that still has its original operating system."