Sacrafices must be made.

I'm sure I've never mentioned it because I carry my burden so well but, being a parent can be quite the beating. Take Friday night for instance; Chad and I took the kids to the Halloween Spooktacular. 

We buy tickets, drive thirty minutes, wait in a loooonnng line to park, traverse a long dusty walk to the entrance, buy additional tickets for kids' friends, lose children, find children, buy additional tickets for bouncy houses, spend $75 dollars on gross fair food, share back-washed water with Jack, use a porta potty, get smacked in the face with a play axe by Luke, tell Lily to stay with us fifty-eight thousand times, carry Jack seven and a half miles, get smacked in the arm with a play axe by Luke, take forty-eight photos that yield about eight photos that make it almost worth it (taking the porta potty bit out of course).

   
Peace fingers? I die.

Notice the shared smile? A bit blurry, but perfect.

 This is possibly the most accurate depiction the evening, especially Luke.

This is the place!

 You've earned a king size candy bar!

This was the phrase that gave some children the necessary motivation to hike for seven hours up the narrows. Yes, I am crazy. I was pretty darn impressed with how well they did too. It was challenging but when it was finally time to call it and turn around I had to rush upstream to catch them and tell them it was time to turn around.

The car trip back to St. George was definitely filled with the sound of exhaustion; even Lily was quiet--and that NEVER happens! I stopped at the gas station and purchased king sized candy bars to everyone's personal requests.

We got further up than I have ever been and had a blast! Jackie fell asleep sitting up next to me on the bus, even though he got carried all day.  It was pretty funny. . .the narrows are probably one of my favorite places and I love that the kids were able to see and enjoy it's beauty.

Emerald Pools--Zion's National Park

In August, the kids and I (and Bailey-pad--my right hand woman!) and some extended family went to Zions National Park. I love this place!

Naturally, Jack decided the top of Emerald pools was the perfect place to relieve himself. So much so that he finished the hike on the way down nakie.

-what you can't see here is a no swimming sign-

We hiked during the day and swam and played tennis by night and had a great time, with one exception, one of the people we were traveling with behaved inappropriately toward me. When writing up this post I was absolutely not going write anything about what happened. But every time my kids see the pics from this trip they mention this incident so I thought I would say a few things so as they later look through this journal they will also remember my thoughts on the subject.

Kids:

You can't control how other people behave but you can control their access to you, meaning you don't have to continue to expose yourself to them. You move past. Crappy things happen but we don't need to carry them around with us. Forgive others and yourself--that does not mean things go back to how they were--and let it go.

So I just about died yesterday . . .

Or at the least, I was almost seriously injured. Cereal.

The children had their usual gaggle of friends over and I was getting them out of the house to be loud outside. "The pool, perfect" I thought. They jumped in for about two seconds then jumped right back out--too cold! Not wanting their dripping loud bodies back in the house I decided to fire up the hot tub for the first time in 2013.

We've used the hot tub a dozen times but I always struggle to remember which direction all the pool knobs and levers are supposed to be turned to when the season starts again. Yesterday, I decided to turn the two knobs opposite direction. I pressed the ignite button and upon hearing the whoosh noise, I walked away satisfied.  I continued fiddling around with the pool equipment not completely confident that I had it positioned correctly. Water from the hot tub was running down the waterfall into the pool. "Shoot," I think to myself, "I don't want to heat the whole pool, maybe I'll turn this knob in this direction?" Water continues flowing down the waterfall into the pool. "Darn" I think, still something is wrong.

The tree above the pool heater has one low errant branch that all of sudden bothers me. Even though the heater is already lit I climb over the pool equipment and move the branch so that it's now on the other side of the concrete wall behind the pool equipment. The kids are splashing around in the hot tub enjoying the influx of heat coming through the water jets. I resumed adjusting the knobs so I can stop heating the ENTIRE pool. I move one more knob to the left. I lean about one foot away from the heater as it continues on. The flow through the stream slows. "Good," I think.

As a professional busybody I clean up the area RIGHT NEXT TO THE HEATER. About thirty seconds pass and I'm satisfied; moving my work away from the heater. When I'm about fifteen feet away and separated by a concrete wall, I hear it.

BOOM

I hear a huge whoosh sound and I see a gigantic fireball. Terror surges through me as I can't quite yet understand what is happening. The fireball goes ten feet in all directions surrounding the heater. Then it's gone. Panicking, I look up at the kids, trying to put it all together. Then it happens again.

BOOM
Now I understand. The pool heater is exploding. BOOM Whoosh I scream for Chad. I scream like a crazy woman -- like a woman who has to stop her pool heater from exploding without being burnt in the process. BOOM Whoosh, it continues. The stucco wall is shielding me from the danger of pieces being blown apart from the unit. BOOM whoosh I am screaming bloody murder for Chad to come help me. Where the bleep is he, I think. I can't leave and go get him to help. By now the children are completely freaked out. They are slowly edging down the edge of the pool to the exit of the pool area.

Owen is directing them, "Mom, what can I do to help?" 

"GO GET YOUR FATHER!!" I bellow.



BOOM whoosh. It is relentless and I know we have to get it shut off before it starts to break apart, catches the trees on fire and then the house. I'm still screaming "CHAD, help me!!! I need you CHADDDDDD!" I grab the long metal pole we use to skim the pool and to try to turn it off. The button is recessed so it has to be hit at an angle. BOOM whoosh. I am shaking so badly that I can't hit the button at the necessary angle. 

Chad comes striding out, "what is going on?! You need to calm down." He starts to walk around the wall to turn off the button with his hand. "NOOOOOO!!" I scream, "it's exploding and you'll be hit by the fireball!" Chad calmly walks back towards me and takes the pole from my hands and turns the heater off. I scream, "we have to get it off, the fireball is getting bigger and that tree's going to light on fire!!!"

"It's off honey." he calmly tells me. "WHAT??!!  No, you have to hit the button and turn it off, it's going to explode any second!!!" I scream.

"It's off." he says and I can see that it is, in fact, off. Hot tears burst out of me and I am shaking like a leaf.

The rest of the day I wax serious about the whole incident. It's got me thinking. This experience is an example of what it means to put upon yourself the whole armor of God. Several things fell into place to keep me and our home safe. They were:

• promptings by the Holy Ghost--moving the tree branch;
• keeping the commandments--the stucco wall (which was built per building code) as a shield from danger;
• prayer--my screaming for help and the fact that I didn't get Chad by my shouting, it was Owen. I am reminded of this quote from President Hinkley, "Oftentimes, the Lord answers our prayers through other people. He often uses others to accomplish his will, or to answer our fervent prayers."
• courage to chose the right--stay with it even though I was afraid.

• faith--well I can't think of anything that went with faith but I can attest that it's definitely part of God's armor.

I'm fairly certain that none of the children who witnessed this experience will ever have a desire to play with fire. Either that or they'll become insane pyromaniacs who blow up buildings. Who's to say?

Tour de jour

Throw every expectation out the window (or boat in our case). Last week we returned from our first, and last, trip to Cabo San Lucas. (For the same money, I prefer Hawaii .) We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the last night of our trip. The Mexicans offered us a glass bottom boat tour about 10-times-a-day and we took them up on it on the last night! We had low, low, low expectations of the excursion because of the seemingly real possibility that the crappy boat could sink, run out of fuel, or our inebriated captain could just fall overboard.

My mama and brother Josh accompanied us on the tour de jour—these two also love to have fun and throw caution to the wind! Moises was our captain and even through inebriated, he was darling. Upon boarding the “vessel” Moises inquired how much we had paid to his wrangler; “$45” we chimed. Moises shook his head sincerely because the wrangler paid him $10 for his services.

Despite this, Moises cheerfully took us to see much more than the famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas that was promised (see the sea lion above? There were TONS of them!). Halfway through the trip we filled his tip jar with the rest of the money in our pockets, which sadly was only like $14 dollars; all of us wanted to give more to our darling Moises.

Chad and I were so impressed with Moises—he received a paltry sum for his services but maintained a great attitude. He threw out food to attract the fishes and they came by the hundreds! Bright yellow and black fish, Nemos, tiny orange fish, blue/green fish, long black fish. It was seriously SO cool.

Moises took us over to the pelicans hang out and we couldn’t get over how giant they were. We saw about 50 of them! Throughout the charter, Moises was shouting for us to look at this, and to look at that, hey, it’s Scooby-Doo rock, see it? See it? Look at this cave—it’s where two people go in and three people come out—Owen was particularly curious about this observation. Look, it’s a rock shaped like the Virgin Mary, etc, etc. We couldn’t see everything, but the Scooby-Doo rock was spot on.

The tour lasted maybe 90 minutes and we enjoyed every second of it. We couldn’t get over how great it was. This was probably due to our low expectations going in. Expectations are a dicey tomato. While it’s important to have high standards of people and experiences, this can often lead to disappointment and frustration. The tour was so great because we went with no preconceived notions. We were able to just enjoy it for what it was and see it for all the positives that it offered—ignoring that the vessel was the equivalent to a blow up row boat or that any quick movement on it could sink us.

This experience was a good reminder to us to just mellow out and look for the positive because even things that aren’t perfect can be pretty darn amazing.

This is hard, you're worth it and I'm trying.

Fair warning: I might emotionally vomit on you if keep reading. Accompanying this emotional vomit are photos from the day Chad and I thought the Mead children were ready for a four mile hike. These photos show a very trying experience for all involved.

I know motherhood is the most important thing I will ever do, but I often feel certain -- sometimes daily -- that I am irrevocably screwing it up. Logically I know that large cups of chocolate milk will be split and that we will clean it up and all survive. Yet, when it happens I'm pissed off. Irritation surges through me like blood through arteries. If you don't already know let me tell you that irritation and motherhood go hand-in-hand.

My mom often exclaimed, "I'm going to have a nervous breakdown!!!!" I remember thinking, "Phefp, what's she freaking out over?" Mom, I feel you now! I get it. Maybe I'll have one or maybe I already did (my memory is shot too). It's probably for the best.

All four of you are flawed. You're impatient, selfish, insensitive, oversensitive, negative, lazy -- I could go on and on. The thing is, I suffer from a lot of the weaknesses too. Yet, here we all are, together trying to work it out. Seems like kind of a sick joke; putting insensitive people next to overly-sensitive people. Sometimes I'm sure God is up there having a really good laugh; the kind where you're re-watching a favorite movie and you start giggling before the funny thing happens. Probably exactly like that, but by now the joke must have gotten old. Certainly he's now thinking "Really? This situation still irritates you!? Get it together."

Tone. I have a problem with tone. Not really the screaming or yelling but speaking in a tone that clearly communicates I don't like you, I'm mad at you. Staph. Then it happens, your shoulders sink in and suddenly you seem so small; I see how deeply I have cut you and I hate myself. I know that despite reacting appropriately over the three prior irritating things I have now blown it over this trivial thing and you don't remember how we happily cleaned up 1,000 cheerios together just an hour ago.

I often think, "I never speak to my friends or husband this way, why can't I get it together for the people who need me the most?" But then I also think, "I wouldn't be friends with someone who never appreciated me or ruined my dress and then later told me how disgusting my dinner was." Seriously, raising kids ain't for whimps.  Especially after you factor in that their ingratitude and rudeness is also your fault! Why haven't you taught them better? Aghhhhh!

Our lesson at church today was The Words we Speak. I felt guilty -- naturally -- and reflected on how just last night Luke told me that I talk to him angry a lot. When I tucked him in I told him he was right and that I am trying and that I'll try to do better, then I apologized and we both cried. As part of the lesson today we were given time to consider, if we had only 25 words we could give to our families what would they be.

Here's mine: I love you. I'm sorry. I'm trying. It's harder then it looks. I'm imperfect, You're worth it.

I only got 18 words down before I was blubbering and could no longer concentrate on what my imaginary last words to you would be. Where my head was at is pretty clear; I'm feeling bad and know I need to do better.

One adjective I didn't list before that belongs squarely behind my name is determined. I am determined to be better at this; for you and for me. Because we were put together to smooth out each others rough edges and both become better for the journey.

Jack's fake cry

 Is possibly my current favorite thing (taking into account that baked goods don't count). Obviously.

This face goes along with the corresponding fake cry which is sort of a "a heahgh heaghe heagh" noise. The fake cry is used for a basically one situation: boredom. It's a "HEY! pay attention to me" noise that works 99.9% of the time. Primarily due to this accompanying face.

Who could resist?