10 years

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A beloved friend in Arkansas – Meghan --  sent these photos to me three days ago.

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I was glad to see that it still has the little bunny and candle lantern and bird that we had placed there on our brief visits in the past couple of years. Also some of the shiny rocks. :)

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I am so grateful that 10 years have passed. Ten years have changed the pain I felt at first – like I could cry for years and years and still have tears that needed to fall – to a deep but softened longing for the time when we’re together again. I know that in this life I always have something of greatest joy to look forward to. Someday I will hold this sweet baby boy again and get to enjoy the time of watching him grow and then a forever with our family all together.

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It’s interesting but since Exacto has been on his mission, it has felt less painful to me to not have the family together. It’s like I have two sons on missions and although I miss them both I am grateful they are where they are and doing what they’re doing, and I know the separation is temporary. For the last 10 years there has always been a gap in our family pictures and a gap in the phrase, “our whole family.” Now that gap is just a little bigger and easier to explain.

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That tree is so gorgeous right now! How grateful I am that Meghan could go take these pictures when she did. How grateful I am for a friend like her to remember me at this time! I haven’t seen her for 4 years. I know there are several dear friends back in Arkansas and also in other places who always remember. True friendship like this is precious indeed.

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So grateful for loving friends.

Grateful for a beautiful addition to our family 10 years ago.

Grateful for the Plan of Happiness that promises eternal families.

Grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ who makes it possible.

Rocky Mountain National Park, raspberry tarts, and other delights

A couple of weekends ago we spent the day at RMNP. We live only about an hour away, and I wish it were even closer! It is so, so lovely.

Many of these photos were taken from the car (apologies!) but I think they still show the beauty of autumn beginning to unfold here.

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We hiked in an area called “Hidden Valley” and went really, really high. It was surprisingly cold – there was frost on the ground.

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We met up with DC’s mom and brother’s family there, and had a wonderful day. I wish we could have spent about a week up there!

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I was curious to see the highest stretch of road in the park (and Bear Lake and the other lower areas were super crowded) so we headed up to the tundra at 12000ft+.

I was amazed at how barren and windy it was at the top, almost like another planet. But then see the lakes up there? So gorgeous!

We came back down to near Bear Lake and had a picnic at a lovely spot near a stream. .

All the campgrounds within an hour of the park were completely full. So the boys camped in our backyard!

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Grandma with B&D’s children.

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I think we must be related! :)

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Rosebud and S.

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Mom Baker made us a fabulous Sunday dinner, of course with ice cream for dessert!

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Rosebud and I found a farm in town with you-pick raspberries. We had a wonderful time and came home with 3 pounds (for $9!). Rosebud’s request was to make raspberry tarts, just like Amelia Bedelia. They turned out super yummy. I can see why Amelia Bedelia is always forgiven for her mistakes when she hands these out. :)

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We still try to take a weekly family photo by the temple. I’m hoping to do a time-lapse video of the progress. . .that would be super neat.

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My amateur attempt at capturing the super-lunar eclipse last Sunday. It looked so much cooler in real life!

Dear Mom, I am, I can, I ought, I will.

week of  October 14 - 20

First of all, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving, having an elder serving in our ward who is from northern Alberta. We enjoyed the excuse to feast, and the elders were very appreciative.

For some strange reason, I seem to fall even farther behind with this blogging things (actually lots of things) when I am homeschooling. (hmmm). Good thing Fluffy and I are having a blast! He is really fun to teach and discuss with. He says his favorite subject right now is Plutarch. (Who knew I would ever get to study Plutarch? :o)

More homeschool highlights. . . .

installing hooks to hang our bikes in the garage

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knitting for a service project

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practicing trombone in the great outdoors (his idea)

Rosebud is not quite so enthralled with ancient Greek biographers, and so this week we began “Letter-of-the-Week” activities. It has been super fun.

A is for apples

and applesauce!

I feel like I pour all my energies into the teaching and feeding of these amazing people who live in my home. And sometimes when the day is over and the house is a wreck (more or less) I catch myself wondering for a moment if I do too much of that and not enough of making our home an orderly, beautiful place. But then the next day I do the same thing again, usually with a fair amount of peace in my heart.

(I promise that no geese were harmed in the production of this post. :)

Yep, I’m pretty convinced that my focus is in the right place for maximum joy. It really is the best job ever! I love being stretched mentally to help Fluffy through Shakespeare one minute and the next returning to my own charmed childhood as I color with Rosebud. I love it when Hummer gets in the car beaming and happy to see me and then hearing about the latest in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or having him offer to teach me the Greek alphabet. I love late night conversations with my logical, deep-thinking Exacto and seeing his goodness expressed so clearly now that he is approaching adulthood. It is amazingly rewarding and really difficult at the same time. (notice I am focusing on the positive and certainly not mentioning the frustrations over dirty socks on the floor, heart-wrenching problems with a couple of aspects in our current situation, homework like crazy, impressive tantrums, running out of milk, etc.)

nature walk on Wednesday

this is when they discovered the “corndogs”

Exacto always has too much homework.

this is when the corndogs exploded

don’t try this at home

snow on Friday!

(no, school was not cancelled. it melted pretty fast. plus, there were no rainbows – why should they cancel school? haha)

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I would never have dreamed how fulfilling this work could be. I can hardly believe I was reluctant for a while to embrace it. So grateful I went for it! Thank you for teaching and encouraging me to make this my life’s work!

And yet, a weekend trip to Denver for Time Out for Women was very welcome. I loved getting to spend time with my church sisters and especially Suzie Q, who lives near Denver now. (sorry no pictures!) I came back refreshed and with new strength and perspective.

A huge thank you to DC for so calmly and sweetly letting me go, even though he is drowning in papers to write! He is so awesome!

Love,

Michelle