March 2017

We kicked off March with a private Elton John concert. Our friends, the Serafins, got Geoff, Tennie and me tickets. Zig works at Qualtrics, who sponsored the concert. It was great to hear familiar, legendary songs, but it was overwhelmingly LOUD, and Geoff and I listened from outside the arena. I felt old.

Tennie with Sela Serafin. 

The next morning Tennie and I joined youth conference up at a private home on the top of a beautiful mountain near Kamas, Utah. It was planned by the two wards with youth this year and was perfect. We only have about 30 active youth in our stake, and they really bonded well and had a good time. We missed Ceci, who was still home sick.

They had an Iron Chef competition.

We went tubing on a groomed hill.

After awhile all of the youth connected their tubes and went down in mass.

There were lots of games in the barn gym.

We heard from the outgoing stake young men's president, Gary Crittenden, who is now the managing director over the missionary department, we watched a Face to Face event and had a testimony meeting. It was fast and fun, and there was a LOT of snow!

We've been trying to eat better. Life seems to consistently knock us off the healthy eating saddle, but we keep getting back on! Look at a few of our dinners! YUM!

I got together with a few friends to celebrate my dear friend Ashley's birthday. She is a gift, so creative and able to make life beautiful in every way. (Left to right: me, Heidi Horlacher, Ashley Serafin and Erin Mecham, Ashley's sister.)

I spent a long weekend in St. George helping my mom pack up her house. She sold her home and is building a new one. It was a whirlwind of boxes and packing paper, but she was ready to go by the end of the weekend. We came across my old Baby Beenie doll (actually my second, I'm not sure what happened to the first). My brothers used to so lovingly tease me by singing, "What does Baby Beanie do? Baby Beanie beans on you! One, two, three, four." I was always so offended and hurt. 

I got to see my brother Mitch and family a little. I love his boys Tag and Pack.

After missing seven weeks of school, Ceci finally recovered her strength from mono and got back to a normal, daily routine of school, chores and play around mid-March. Seven weeks. That is a long time to be out sick!

Tennie turned 17! The night before her birthday she and Geoff went to get her driver's license, so she could officially say she got it when she was 16.

She drives herself and Adele to early morning seminary!!! And she drives herself to activities, orthodontist appointments and even taxied Adele to her CHOICE board meeting. I missed out on a whole year of this! But at last it happened at last.

We walked to a new restaurant downtown to celebrate her birthday. Other than that it seemed pretty uneventful since she only wanted money and planned her own birthday gathering with friends on the weekend.

Adele had emailed Tennie's friends asking various questions about Tennie. She compiled a little book of friend love and gave it to her after dinner. Tennie loved it!

She and some friends gathered over the weekend for hanging out at the mall, going out to eat and riding bikes in the rain. They spent a lot of time at our house playing the guitar and singing and lounging around enjoying each other. Tennie is easy to love and be with.

Other things that happened in March include going with Ceci's teacher and her family to the Temple Square Choir and Orchestra Spring concert, taking sewing lessons every Wednesday morning to make a baby quilt for Booch and Heather's baby and getting a special spa treatment from Ceci that included a 45 minute foot rub!

Adele and I put a little package together for cousin Eli who had his tonsils out. When the girls were little and had a bad sickness, Mormor would send them a little package of things to do. It always cheered them up and brought so much love. To help Eli feel Mormor's love we collected little Dollar Store things Mormor would have sent, and I got to deliver them and spend a few hours reading books and talking with this cute little three-year-old. I love to see how the family is inspired in different ways to continue Mesha's influence as a mother and grandmother.

Ceci and Bailey could have been mistaken for robbers in our building one day.

Our lobby is getting a major makeover so we've lived with construction and dust. On a more exciting note, Geoff's dad got remarried in San Diego to Robin Rienking. We got to listen into the ceremony online and look forward to a visit to their home in April. Adele planted a small garden on our balcony that includes peas, strawberries, lettuce and variety of herbs. It is an experiment as we only get morning sun and this Spring is quite cool so far, but she is diligently watching over her growing, living things!

And on the final days of March Geoff left for the World Economic Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It wasn't one of his easier travel days. He woke up extremely dizzy, running into walls and feeling nauseated. Strange, but he was going anyway. He missed his connection in Atlanta by ONE MINUTE (seriously, the guy just closed the doors and wouldn't let him on the plane) due to weather and had to be rerouted through Rio de Janeiro for a seven hour layover. Making the most of the layover Geoff went to the beach and while distracted by a tattoo vendor, a towel vendor stole his backpack with ipad, shoes, sacrament journal with a lot of personal thoughts, and other small things in it. After getting his phone at the hotel, he and a policeman tracked down the thief using the ipad finder function, but when heading up the stairs of the apartment building the ipad was turned off and they weren't sure which of the 10 floors/apartments it was in. He had to make his flight and leave his belongings in Rio. He made it safely to Argentina, though.

On to April!

February 2017

February has been pretty low-key since Ceci is still out with mono. She is in her sixth week of missing school. She is currently doing some detox herbs to pull the virus from her system, but it appears that her adrenals are fatigued, at least that is how she is acting. 

Meanwhile, we're trying to do school projects when she is up to it, and she has listened to the entire Harry Potter audio series and is into the second Percy Jackson series. She has been drawing loads of families and other types of drawings:

We play lots of games. At first it was Chinese Checkers, but I couldn't even come close to beating her.  Seriously, that kid is a whiz at strategy games. We moved onto Pickup Sticks, but she has proven to be as steady a hand as she is at whooping my hiney at Chinese Checkers! Now we've been playing a game with a little more chance to it: Farkle. Awesome game that keeps us busy for hours, although Geoff and I agree that we should have her buy a lottery ticket, because she rolls high far more than we do.

She's had some friends, church leaders and neighbors bring her flowers and gifts. Her Beehive class even held their church meeting in our living room this past Sunday.

She is a good sport and keeps herself busy a good portion of the day without complaining.

One Saturday Bailey came over and she found the strength to dress up and make hilarious youtube videos. There was minimal movement, but it wiped her out for a few days. It was a nice diversion from sitting on the couch day after day, though!

And when Adele is home they find low-energy activities together, like emptying a few of our closets to make forts where they eat and draw and pass notes back and forth.

I was in charge of putting on a Grandparent's Day at Ceci's school a few days before Valentine's Day. It was a huge success. Teachers pulled together great displays of the children's work, and parent's came through in providing a great brunch for over 500 visiting grandparents. I love Waldorf.

I spoke to the youth at two ward conferences this month, and put on a stake leadership training while Geoff helped all of the young women in the stake find family names in the stake Family History Library. ALL young women found names and were so excited! The next week, on Valentine's Day, we had a fancy sit down dinner for all youth in the stake before going to do temple baptisms. Those young women were so excited to take their own cards! Our stake hosted a multi-stake ice-skating activity at the Gallivan Center, too, and we had New Beginnings and our Winter Youth Conference planning meetings. It was a busy month!

The weeks leading up to Valentine's Day we had a lot of Valentine love notes going on between us in Adele's cute, homemade mailboxes:

The mini, pink roses died on our cute, little table-top rose bush the week of Valentine's Day. I tried to extend the life of it's Valentines-ness. 

Geoff won the prize this year for the cutest valentine. He was so excited for us all to look in our mailboxes on the morning of Valentine's Day.

Seriously, I am so low maintenance in this way. I wore it with LOVE all day.

My cute, aunt Vicki passed away after having rheumatoid arthritis for decades, and numerous other illnesses for the past several years. It was great to see so many Brinton aunts, uncles and cousins while celebrating the life of a tremendously cool woman. My mom came up for the funeral and stayed a few days, which was really fun. She joined in the games with Ceci, and we got a little shopping in. Her visits always feel too short!

Geoff and Tennie took a day off from school and work to go skiing, and she has begun to learn to drive a stick shift! Goal set by mom: driver's license by 17th birthday.

We've been trying all sorts of delicious recipes. One of our favorites was this fish bowl. Yum!

I learned about a simple vitamin combination that promises amazing results in health. It is totally practical and common sense, and yet seems too good to be true. Always hopeful that we'll find a solution to our many, many health concerns, the whole family is on this product. February was our first month. Stay tuned and I'll let you know if it is worth writing about.

Tennie and Adele had their intensive weeks. Tennie's two-week intensive was set-design for the high school play coming up. She has had fun with the creative and artistic aspects.

Adele was in an Asian intensive where they prepared and cooked different Asian foods every day and volunteered, tutoring English students at a local, Asian refugee center. Adele LOVED it. She worked with people from all around the world, and you can see her radiate with love and light in the few pictures she took. She's scheming organizing an intensive to Greece to work in a refugee camp later this year.

Eating all of that Asian food reminded Adele that she had a New Year's goal to learn to use chopsticks. We had several nights of Asian food at home, too, and we all got a little more chopstick savvy.

Adele insists we've moved beyond disposable chopsticks and it's time for the real deals.

We got a glimpse of Spring for several days before winter came back to finish up February. Here's to hunkering down a little bit longer in our layers and boots!

January

January was intentionally low-key. My goals for the year all revolve around slowing down a bit, getting back to some of the basics to keep my life and our home life organized, steady and a bit less hectic. While it will take some time to make the changes I'm hoping to make, our first month was a step forward (with many more steps to go).

It continually baffles me how different our lives are in this apartment in Salt Lake relative to our lives in Auburn, California. Back then Geoff wasn't working, the girls were homeschooled so there weren't any school time commitments or demands, and we didn't have cell phones. Adding those elements back into our lives, with the addition of kids growing and having independent interests and commitments, has caused some upheaval in our family life. I'm not sure it is possible to recreate the pace of the girl's childhood in this urban environment, but I'm trying to see how close I can take it.

First, we're trying to eat more healthy. I used to spend at least five hours a day in the kitchen back then. Not only do I not want to spend that much time in the kitchen anymore, but I'm not even home for that much time these days. So one goal is to eat simply and well. This is the thing that gets knocked off first in our busy lives, and we all can feel the difference. Not only do we not feel as good, but we're getting sick more often.  We've tried a few breakfast bowls and smoothies:

Due to a nasty cold that inflicted us all (some still fighting it) I have been making a strong lemon tea at least once a day. It has lemon, garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper, apple cider vinegar, honey and warm water. We all love it.

Geoff got me a membership to a nearby yoga studio, which I LOVE. It feels so good to be doing yoga again. All of us feel cooped up with the nasty air outside, but when we can we get out and move our bodies. We all need to be more active get outside more. One step at a time...

Tennie has her first official job at Zuppas. A friend of hers works there and told her boss, who was looking for new hires, she knew someone who would be great. They invited her in for an interview over dinner and offered her a job on the spot. She works two shifts a week and is learning to balance this new responsibility.

Tennie also joined her first protest for women's rights. Geoff walked with her to the capitol in the snow. It is an interesting political climate right now, and I admire Tennie's desire to be involved and to form her own ideas and opinions. Simultaneously, Geoff and I are trying to teach the girls how to discern truth and acknowledge the adversary's role in deception, confusion and chaos.

Speaking of marches and protests, there sure are a lot of them passing by our apartment building these days...

Adele turned 15! She opted to keep the $100 birthday party budget in hopes of a humanitarian trip in her near future, and asked for cash birthday presents for the same goal. This girl has her heart, might and mind on doing good in the world, and she wants to start today! She is always looking up Mother Theresa volunteer trips, Global Leadership trips and family service opportunities. There is a recently-formed Rotary Club at her school and she is so excited for the local community service opportunities. 

I picked her up from school and we went to a tea house near Ceci's school, before picking her up. Adele loves her warm beverages and coffee cups! And I love having her all to myself.

We went to Aubergine for her birthday dinner. Thumbs up all around.

We pulled out her baby book and looked up old photos of her childhood. Here are a few that surfaced.

We had Geoff's dad and Nikki over for everything-free cupcakes the following Sunday. 

One morning Adele was frustrated with her hair. Geoff and I tried to lighten things up by putting on some wigs while she was in the bathroom, hoping that she would come out and laugh. Turns out we thought we were more funny than she did.

We met our friends, the Serafins, in Park City to go sledding one Saturday. The kids lasted about 30 minutes before wanting to head home to hang out. It was a nice effort to get fresh air and exercise!

Geoff, Tennie and Ceci went skiing one day.

Ceci learned how to bake bread at YWs. (I think I actually ate most of the loaf...)

Geoff took a week-long trip to the Dominican Republic for business and then came home in time to co-host a YGL event in Salt Lake City during the Sundance Festival with fellow YGL and friend, Dave Hanley. Eight guests came and stayed in a friend's mountain home; they skied and snowshoed and saw a few Sundance screenings.

Meanwhile Ceci had a sleepover at school, which she talked about for hours/days. Have I mentioned how much I love Waldorf? Unfortunately, the cold she had fought off a few days before came back and turned into mono. As of me writing this she has missed two weeks of school and isn't showing any sign of improvement. Poor thing is so bored of laying on the couch. Amazing that this little ball of energy has no energy! Thank goodness for the Harry Potter audio series!

And lastly, Tennie had to have another oral surgery. The attachment on the tooth they are trying to pull down into place came off, which required another surgery, AND it has delayed her braces coming off by about six months! Seriously, this kid has some trials! She is tough, though, and maintains a pretty darn good attitude.

And that's a wrap!