A Piece of Humble Pie

Humility comes in many different packages.  I believe humility is one of the hardest but most important things to gain from this life.  A while back I was reading in the bible about the Sermon on the Mount (I may have mentioned this already, I can't remember), and I got the feeling that it would be a good thing to study for a while.  More indepth.  I put it off and kept on studying other things, but this kept coming up.  So finally I decided to dig a little deeper.  The first thing I felt like looking into was Meekness.  Meekness is something that seems to go under the radar.  Mainly because of what it is.  Meekness is often mistaken for being a door mat.  In fact it's mistaken as a bad quality in most of society today.  But from my studying I've learned that it is a really important factor to becoming more like Christ.  Meekness is a quality that we must possess.  It is one that will help get us in the position to strengthen some of the other qualities that we need as well.  Being easily entreated is something that comes naturally to someone who is meek.  This is something that I don't think I've ever possessed.  I am terrible at asking questions.  I am terrible and recognizing what it is I need to delve into.  I've always been content with the information I've been handed and have rarely tried to find out more.  It's sad really.  To think of all that I've missed out on simply because I was too prideful to seek for more.  All of the classes in school that I went clueless in.  So anyway.  The whole reason I'm talking about this is because once I started researching meekness, I also started praying for help with developing it.  I realized that to develop meekness I would also need to develop humility so I was praying for that.  Praying to know my weaknesses, and praying to be able to recognize areas I could improve on.  I think my mind is full of things I would like to change about myself, but I wanted to know what Heavenly Father wanted me to focus on.  So I think that the prayers and the efforts I've tried to make are starting to pay off, and I think answers are starting to come.  The hard part is how they are coming.  I don't want to go into detaill, but I've had several people in my life lately, people who I really haven't been that close with over the last few years, and people who I wasn't sure ever would want to be close to me, come to me with things that I've done to offend them, things I've said, things I've eluded to.  It's been really difficult to hear.  At first I fought it inside.  I didn't want to come to grips with the fact that I had offended people unintentionally and that that had been the cause of years of hurt and therefore distance.  Last week when I had the most recent one brought to my attention, I really couldn't remember the incident.  I was SURE I hadn't really said the thing I was accused of saying.  It was so hurtful, and not what I had ever thought.  I apologized, but I really didn't believe I had done it and that it was a misinterpretation of something else I had said, something less hurtful of course.  Well, a little later that evening, I couldn't get it off my mind so I said a prayer.  I asked Heavenly Father to please help me remember the incident.  To help me remember exactly what I had said, the context, and what I had meant so that I would have something substantial to defend myself with the next day.  I was SURE I was innocent.  Well, only minutes later, the Spirit revealed to me what I had done and what I had said.  It was exactly what I had been told.  I was able to remember when it happened (over 10 years ago), and that I actually did say it.  It was so sad.  I cried.  I realized that even though my intentions were not completely hurtful, they were not as pure as I had thought either.  I had been hurt, and was not bridling my emotions at the time.  Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience.  Heavenly Father has a way of letting me know that I've been completely wrong, offensive and even hurt Him, but with the most loving Spirit.  I could feel His love so strongly while at the same time feeling completely chastised.  It was something I've not felt in a long time that I can remember.  So anyway.  I got the feeling that these incidences, the many that I've been through in the past month or two, have been answers to my prayers.  As difficult as they may have been.  Heavenly Father is letting me see my weaknesses.  The really deep ones that I really wasn't aware of.  It happened again a couple days ago and it helped to realize that this really is just an answer to my prayers.  It makes it a lot easier for me to humble myself, recognize what the problem is, analyze it and move on.  Heavenly Father has also been there to help me see that I am learning how to deal with these situations.  I've been able to have a lot more self-control and listen first before jumping back with a defense.  I credit this to the mental and Spiritual clarity I have felt in my life from following the Word of Wisdom more closely than I ever have before.  And the waking up early and starting my day out with a good workout, and some time to myself.  It's really been helpful with all of the other things that are occurring in my life right now.  Heavenly Father just orchestrates things so well.  I feel His hand in my life so much lately.  I feel like he is directing my paths and that I am finally in a position where I am following Him.  I don't say this to sound proud, or to sound like I think I'm better than anyone.  I hope this doesn't come across that way.  If you know me,  you know that I've needed some direction for quite some time now, and to finally have it is just miraculous to me.  I have so many friends and people I look up to and you all show qualities that I would like to possess.  I think I'm just now learning how to get there.  I hope I can make up for the lost time and become the person Heavenly Father wants me to be.  By following your examples, and the example Christ has set for us.  It means a lot to me that I can put this out here.  It's humbling just admit it all.  But I feel like it is necessary for me to progress.  I want to know what I can do to be better.  So, now that I've put this out here :)  if anyone has anything they've felt or wanted to complain to me about.... anything I've done or said to offend you over the years, even the little things, please feel free to tell me about it.  I'm open to anything right now.  I'm looking to make restitution.  I really had no idea there were things out there that people have had to hold on to over the years, things that they felt they couldn't get off their chests.  Things I had forgotten, or not known about, unfortunately.  So please... maybe this is a weird way to ask, but please, let me know.  I will do my best to make it right.

My Mother's Day!

I can't believe I forgot to post about my special day!!  My family make this day so fun for me!  I just look forward to it and love it so much.  It started out just right, with a yummy breakfast in bed!  Scrambled egg and toast sandwich, and my favorite- BACON!!!  Then the kids all showered me with their thoughtful gifts.  Erika gave me a cute little Mercer Mayer book "Mommy and Me"... Nate knows how much I love those books!  And Erika is such a sucker for books, it's fun to read with her.  Noah gave me a mirror that I'm pretty sure he picked out all by himself :)  He was so excited about it for days beforehand.  I love that :).  Then Lukey gave me a cute little "purse" for my makeup.  He picked that out too :)  So adorable.  I actually used it on our trip to Yellowstone too and he thought that was cool :).  Bradley gave me a cute little frame he made at school.  My favorite part is that he stuck it right across from my bedroom door, so that everytime I walk out of my room (early mornings especially :)) I see that Brad loves me :).  Ahh.  Kelly, my sweet little Kelly, made me the coolest little book case for all of my new books.  She's so creative and usually likes to hand make her gifts, this was no exception.  She did a great job and it looks so cute on my dresser!  I love it.  So thoughtful.  Charity being the big book reader that she is found a book that I have been wanting to get and read for a LONG time, and gave it to me.  With her own money too!  The Five Love Languages.  I'm almost done with it and it's just perfect.  I love that the love for reading that she has is really rubbing off on me lately.  I've been reading a lot more than I ever thought I would :).  And then Nate spoiled me with this amazing Wacom Bamboo Tablet for the computer.  I haven't had a LOT of time to play with it, but it's going to revolutionize the way I edit photos.  It also came with Photoshop Elements 8, which I've really been interested in.  And it came with a few other drawing programs that I think the kids will LOVE to try out.  Kelly's been wanting to write and illustrate a book, so that will be perfect for that.  It's just a fun gift.  Nate's good at that.  I got to relax at church, with no responsibilities, and we got to have a yummy danish in the kitchen during Primary!  How nice that they give us our treat during church so that we don't have to share and so that we got to socialize a little as well :)  I loved that.  We took a long nap, had dinner, headed on over to my Mom's and she spoiled me with gifts (I'm not sure why my mom gives me a present on Mother's day, but she does, and it's sweet, so I'll take it :)), then headed up to Nate's Parents' house for the family meeting.  It was such a nice day.  I love thinking about my role as a Mother, and taking inventory of how I'm doing.  There are SO many areas I want to improve in and so many things I do wrong, but I love to know that Heavenly Father can fill in the gaps and as long as I do what I can, we'll be okay.  I think there are discouraging moments, and I really wish there weren't, but I guess that's what helps us grow.  That's what helps us want to improve.  And I'm okay with improving I guess.  Anyway, I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day!!  Sorry I'm so late about it :)

Charity's Lagoon Field Trip

The Driving Game

Okay, so this game was just too funny, it needed it's own post.
Here's how it goes:

Noah: Dad, you wanna play the driving game?
Nate: Sure!
Noah: K, you be the kid, I'll be the dad.
Nate: K
Noah: (hands holding imaginary steering wheel, moving up and down) Drive, drive, drive, drive.... where do you want to go?  You want to go to the store?
Nate: Sure
Noah: K, we're just going to go to a couple stores, ten stores.
Nate: K, can I get a treat?
Noah: yeah
Nate: Can I get 2 treats?
Noah: yeah
Nate: Can I get 3 treats?
Noah: yeah
Nate: Can I get 4 treats?
Noah: yeah
Nate: Can I get 5 treats?
Noah: No.

Then they do this whole getting unbuckled, and getting buckled thing, where Nate tells Noah he needs to be buckled and Noah says, "I already did!"  Cracks me up that Noah just shoots down what he says, and has a rebuttle.

Another scenario:

Noah: Want to go to Carl Jrs, Kid?
Nate: Sure!
Noah: K, we here.
Nate: Do I get a kid meal?
Noah: yep! Here's your toy!
Nate: I don't want a girl toy, I want a boy one!
Noah: It's not a girl one!
Nate: but it's PINK!
Noah: No it's not!  It's blue!
(and now we know that Noah knows the difference between boy colors and girl colors)

This one was one of my favorites, they had been at the store and were getting ready to leave, Noah says:
K, kid, time to go.
Nate: No!  I don't want to go!!
Noah: we're going!
and then this part's kind of hard to explain but Nate kept on repeating "No, I don't want to go home!  I don't want to go...."  all the while Noah was saying, "Drive, drive, drive, drive..... "  Totally not letting it phase him that his "kid" was not on board with it all, and then after a few seconds of that, Noah says firmly, "We're Home."
We all just laughed.  He's so all business :)

And the last one I'll mention was when they were driving home from somewhere, Noah was doing his usual "Drive, drive, drive...." at the usual pace, and then Nate says, "I gotta go potty!!"  And Noah goes, "Drivedrivedrivedrive...." speeding up his driving!!  HA!!  What a nut.  I'm still laughing about it. 

The whole thing is just hilarious.  That they can sit there, one behind the other, strapped in a car, and pretend to do all these crazy random things.  They went to the movies, took several potty breaks- those were really funny, with Nate asking Noah to wipe his bumb- restaurants, stores..... just so cute.  I loved Noah's sound effects too.  He's adorable.  Too bad I didn't get it on video.  What was I thinking?

Yellowstone or Bust!

Wednesday, May 11th we set off for West Yellowstone!  I was really sick that morning (I'm thinking it was from the insane workout the day before, because no one else got it, but still not really sure what it was...  I was dead to the world)  Poor Nate did all the last minute stuff (which is always a lot for us, we are pro-christa-nate-rs), pretty much on his own because I was just useless.  Luckily I had prepared all of our meals the day before.  We checked the kids out and were on our way!  The drive up was pretty nice other than feeling like crap.  The kids did really well, Nate and I got to talk a lot.  It was pretty pleasant!  It was a lot longer than I had remembered or anticipated, but we got to the condo around 6:00 and got settled in before too late. 
Nate's parents have a Trendwest membership (or whatever it's called) and we always get to benefit from it when we go on trips with them.  We stayed in this super nice condo for like 10 bucks a night.  Just us, with Nate's parents down the hall and his brother and his family upstairs.  After we got settled, we cooked up our Sweet and Sour Chicken and Ham Fried Rice.  Such a yummy dinner.... especially for being a reheated one.... We were so happy to share it with everyone too.  There was WAY too much of it!  The girls had fun carrying the key card around visiting everyone.  I think they felt all mature.  Since we were in a room for only 6 people, Charity and Kelly went down the hall to sleep with Nate's parents at night. 
Everyone took a while to fall asleep, but they all slept pretty well.  I slept like a dream in the HUGE KING SIZE BED!!!  LOVED THAT!!! 
I liked that we didn't have to jump out of bed real fast in the morning and it was a casual getting ready time.  We took off for the park around 10:00.




About 5 minutes out (I have no idea how long it really was, but it felt really soon) we saw our first herd of bison.  I took way too many pictures.  Here are a small fraction of them.
















Look how cute this little baby is!!!  I loved the baby ones.  Good reason to go in the Spring, I decided.





Maybe this is too close and personal, but I thought it was sweet.  How nice is it that she can nurse in public.











Ya gotta love the road blocks.



This was the first bear that we saw.  Clear up on a hill.... I was pretty amazed to see a bear and I still need to give Nate his prize from our bet.  What should his prize be, I wonder?  I really didn't think we would see any bears.  I don't think we did when I went to Yellowstone as a kid.









Charity seemed so happy this whole trip.  She was pleasant 99% of the time.  She was so grateful for everything the whole time too.  I loved it.  She loved being with her cousins and swimming, but she still had fun looking at the park too :).

Brad did really well too.  He didn't seem overly impressed by the wildlife.... we're still trying to decide if our kids have just seen enough wildlife now that it just doesn't phase them.  Not sure, but he was really anxious to see the geysers most of the trip :)



Look!  Yellow. Stone.






Here's most of the kids.



Kelly was a really big helper too.  So happy and fun in the car.  She helped keep the mood up :)  I think she enjoyed the swimming and cousins the most also :) 





Jen was so awesome with Erika on the walk up Mammoth.  She's got so much more patience than me.  Erika sure loved her attention and I think she finally warmed up to her near the end of the trip.... 












I don't remember what everything is.  Sorry.  But I did take more than enough pictures!  Scroll fast if it bores you.




























While we were parked, eating lunch, these bison made their way over toward us.  It is so strange to be so close with these huge creatures with nothing to protect you from them really.  Kinda makes you realize your place in the whole scheme of things.  Kind of humbling.

We saw these Elk up the mountain from us also.  They didn't seem to worried about the bison either.



I don't know, maybe I just value my life too much, but these people got way too close for MY comfort!  Scary.







And this is the second bear that we saw.  He was a lot closer.  So cool!!



This Hydrothermal Feature (I can't believe that's the first time I've said that phrase in this whole post!!! amazing) was probably my favorite.  It just looked so pretty!  And it's bubbling because of volcanic gasses, not because it's boiling.  Just in case you were wondering.  The temperature is just under boiling point.







HA!  This still makes me laugh.  At one point I looked back and saw Erika with the newspaper up like this.  Cracks me up.



This is the awesome coyote we saw.  He walked around by the water for a while and then ran up the embankment, across the road, up a hill and wrestled with some animal (there's a debate whether it was a bird or a squirrel, so I'm not going to say which), and walked off with it in his mouth.... pretty cool.  All with a huge audience of people.  I can't believe how many photographers there were up there.  With THE HUGEST, NICEST cameras, I've EVER seen!  I wonder if them make any money doing it or if it's strictly hobby......














I loved these clouds.  It was SO beautiful up there.  The weather was fantastic, perfect temperatures, no rain (NO SNOW!!), just beautiful!  Sure beat the jacket/coat weather we were anticipating.
Wehn we got back to the condo, Nate let me take the kids to the pool while he cooked up the meatballs and mashed potatoes.  See how sweet he is!  Fun swimming, good food, and then the Taylors showed up!  The kids played around a little and then we hit the sack (way later than I'm used to these days!)


Friday morning we headed on out again for some more Yellowstone sightseeing.

Erika had a tricky time on this vacation.  First, I must say that she did really well for a 1 1/2 year old.  I really don't think we could have expected more and espedcially compared to some of the cousins her age, I can say, we lucked out.  BUT that being said, she was not a happy camper a LOT of the time.  She didn't love getting in her carseat after every stop.  She didn't love driving around, and she was just completely unimpressed by everything that we saw (assuming she could even see it, based on her position in the car, she probably didn't even see a whole lot).  She DID love swimming at the condo at night, and she did love all the walks and running around.  That is her favorite :)













Noah was a pretty good boy!  He wasn't all that impressed with anything, but he did a good job in the car.  In fact, his "driving game" with Nate was probably about the funniest thing I've witnessed in a LONG time.  I will share the details of that with you later.  But he's very good at keeping himself entertained.  And as I've said a million times before.... VERY imaginative.







Nate was such a fun vacationy dad.  It's nice to have someone who's relaxing and easy-going at a time like that.  He's good at dealing with what comes.  He is all the time anyway, but it was extra nice on this trip.  I just love him, what can I say.





The Southern Loop, where we were the second day, seemed snowier than the Northern loop, which didn't make a lot of sense, but either way.  I really loved the white landscape.  Reminded us of Alaska. 

Check out that wall of snow!!!  It was as tall as our car.



sulfur smell





Lukey was pretty enjoyable the whole trip as well.  (Did I mention my kids are perfect? HA!)  He seemed really quiet a lot of the time.  How he usually is in the car I guess.  But he played the games and enjoyed seeing the animals.  He LOVED swimming!








I love how Noah runs :)  He's our little super hero.



Can't wait to see what we got on video on this trip :)  The kids were our videographers :)







Is this a raven or a crow?  They didn't seem quite big enough to be ravens.... but I do love black birds.  They look so cool!



We got to Old Faithful just minutes after it had gone off.  Which was slightly disappointing considering it was already getting late.  We knew we had an hour and ten minutes before it went off and we didn't think we could make it all the way out to Morning Glory and back before Old Faithful would go off again.  We decided we would try to see Morning Glory the next day on our way out of the Park since we were planning on going out the South Gate and taking a more scenic route home.... So this cool little hydrothermal feature was on the little walk around Old Faithful.




waiting... waiting....




Thar she blows!  (or he.... is it a he or a she?)



zoomed in...

That second day was really fun, and the kids kept saying they were having fun "but, when can we go swimming?"  So we made sure to leave some time to swim when we got back to the condo.  We swam, ate the yummy barbecue, and then swam some more.  The kids all watched part of Yogi Bear together, and ran the night out.  It was a lot of fun.





Erika absolutely LOVED swimming!!  She had a lot of fun in the kiddie pool, but she kept asking me to take her over to the big pool.  She would hang on to me so tight, it was so cute!!







Noah and Luke had a blast in the kiddie pool.  They were out of control!!!  SO FUN!!




So at about 4:00 Saturday morning, (I should mention that Friday night, while we were tired, we had been debating and rethinking oiur decision to go through the South Gate, and Tetons, and weren't so sure we wanted the extra hoursin the car)  I woke up to Noah SCREAMING, "MOMMY, I GOING THWOW UP!!!"  just hysterically, it was so insane.  I got up and walked him to the toilet, and he swallowed a few times then said he was fine.  I wasn't all that coherent I don't think, because I walked him back to his bed, tucked him in and went back to my bed.  Well, of course a few minutes later, he was screaming again and this time, coughing also.  So I jumped out of bed, flew into the kitchen, grabbed a bowl and had it right there, just in time to catch the vomit.  SO CRAZY!!!  Ya know how your heart pumps really fast when you've been jolted awake? (well mine does) this time it was just going like mad!!  It was only a few more minutes and a few more cookie launches later, that Nate and I were both like, "let's just go straight home tomorrow".  There was no way we were going to try an extra long ride home with the chances of vomit.  I think if I'd thought it out a little harder, I would have not let stop us, Noah really must have some kind of problem, allergy or aversion to food or something, because he throws up way too often, and no one else does.  Or maybe it's just because he sucks his fingers.... who knows.  But either way it turned out to be a good thing, and a blessing since there was a landslide on the route we would have taken and we would have had to back track all the way back up through Yellowstone and back down the normal way.  So that saved us a LOT of trouble.  I'm considering it a tender little mercy :).... and poor sweet little Noah was fine the rest of the day.... didn't hae any other episodes.

So Saturday, later in the morning (after Nate let me go back to bed for a couple hours while he entertained Erika and Noah), we got the whole condo cleaned up and presentable for Becky and her family.  And packed up and left.  The drive home seemed long.  Noah and Nate played the "driving game" for about 3 hours straight.  I kid you not.  So I slept a little of the way.  We did however find this really fun place to stop for lunch and to shake out our legs a little.  It was this little lake and park.  Seemed fairly new.  I sat and just took pictures the entire time, so you can imagine how many I got.  Unfortunately I never did get the backside view of all six of them in front of the lake like I had wanted..... maybe next time.  But here are some of the pictures.

Brad did a lot of rock finding and throwing.  We didn't get much of the front of him :)



Kelly had her shoes off before she got out of the car and rolled up her pants shortly after.  She played in the water a lot.  She looked so pretty out there!



Erika carried around her string cheese, got dirty, stepped in the water up to her knees, and had a lot of fun squealing at the dogs around us.  She was a complete mess by the time we got done.  And she looked like she was wearing a wife beater under her jogging suit :) HA!




Noah did a lot of rock throwing as well.  That was one thing he had wanted to do with all the hydrothermal features at Yellowstone, but was forbidden, so this was a chance to give him what he wanted :)  He loved it.  It was hard to get him to leave when it was time to go.






Lukey found the jackpot of smooth rocks.  He brought us about 30 really beautiful, shiny rocks while we sat there.  He just kept running out and coming back with a new cool rock.  He loved it.  And of course the rocks are now hanging out in our backyard.




















Charity got in the water a little also.  She's getting too cool to really do the kid thing these days.  She looked so pretty out there too.  She liked watching the dogs with Erika too.


















one, two, three, four, five..... where's Erika??

Oh, of course, she's over there, overseeing those strangers digging a hole.  Sometimes she's just SO not shy :)  Makes me laugh.




And that's it.  I plan to make a list of the favorites from this trip, whether I add it to this one or not.... it's coming!