On Saturday, Fay was baptized! She was so excited to finally get to do it, since her birthday was back in May. I’m so proud of her choice to make covenant promises with Heavenly Father, and so impressed by all the ways she has prepared herself. She is truly an amazing young woman and I am beyond honored to be her mother!
I feel like the more pictures with masks, the merrier! It will be fun, some day, to remember this time and rejoice that it is over!
I am also so grateful, in light of Fay’s baptism, for Josh worthily holding the Melchizedek Priesthood and therefore being able to perform these sacred ordinances!
Before quarantine even began, we had decided to combine Fay’s baptism and Bianca’s baby blessing. Fay was thrilled to be able to share her day with her brand new sister!
They were so beautiful together!
There were so many more moments I would have loved to have captured from this ultra-special day. But despite the pictures we didn’t get to take, and the Zoom call dying at the church, and the whole pandemic situation, Bianca is now blessed and Fay is now a baptized, confirmed member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, possessing the gift of the Holy Ghost as her constant companion, and we are thrilled for both our beautiful girls!
Our experience trying to get this all to happen has been a beautiful reminder to me that, though Heavenly Father does allow us to experience disappointments and setbacks, He also prepares a way for “every needful thing” to be accomplished.
Thank you to everybody who supported us by coming, or watching over Zoom (or trying to), or just thinking about Fay and Bianca! We truly appreciate all your love and support!
On Friday, I FINALLY turned 30! I feel like I’ve been living the life of a person in her thirties since I was 22, so I’m really glad to finally just be official!
Happy Birthday to me!
For my birthday, Josh got me my dream tea-set! We have had tea (aka: steeped herbal beverage) with it once with the whole family and I am VERY pleased to report that nothing is broken!
It is even more beautiful in real life, if you can imagine that!
I celebrated my birthday by eating anything and everything I wanted and braving a baby-sitter in the pandemic so Josh and I could go on a date! Thanks, Mariel! It was lovely and relaxing, and I feel very celebrated!
Josh figured out this past week what he wanted to do with his birthday money and “motivosity” money. So he bought an electric skateboard. 😀 Josh was into skateboarding as a kid, and his new electric one means he can have all the fun without any of the work! He has taken the kids on many rides and gone on some lengthy pleasure cruises by himself. I must confess, he looks really good on it! (If a little bit like a teenager…) But I don’t have a picture of him on it; I only have a picture of his dad on it. Apparently Dad used to be into skateboarding too.
So fun!
I’ll have to get a picture of Josh on this thing! Especially one with one of the kids!
Anyway, back to business (and I don’t mean the American lady with her cats, sisters).
On Thursday night, we went to Farmington where one of Josh’s LP associates had a GIANT fireworks show in a park near his house. He sends requests each year to the people in the office for the coupons for fireworks that come in the mail, and then invites everyone to come to the show if they want. Well, we sent him a coupon last year, and sent him three coupons this year, so we figured we definitely merited our invitation. Apparently when he began doing this show, it was a group of like 30 people or so who would meet at his house. But it has now grown into a GIANT production at the park with food-trucks, music, and around 700 people in attendance and SO many fireworks! It was fun to be part of it.
The line-up of fireworks!
Getting ready for the show with glow-sticks
Bianca quite enjoyed her glow-stick. She quite despised the fireworks. Poor thing! She was really tired.
We had a fun week! But Saturday was the real highlight! Check the next post!
This week we endeavored to ignore the pandemic by camping again! Although, I feel like it was boarder-line glamping. But it was still lots of fun!
We finally made it to Jordanelle to play at the Utah-beach! Our campsite had hookups so we had a fan going during the day and a heater on for the second half of the night. It was pretty incredible that there was an almost 40 degree difference between day and night!
Our Campsite
How Bianca Does Camping
In order to camp with hookups you have to either have your tent on a teeny tent-pad (not pictured) or put it on the parking pad for trailers. Since our tent was way too big for the pad, and you can’t stake it to asphalt, Josh made these really cool PVC frame-type-thingies to structure it. Then we put our bags and things in the corners to keep it from blowing away. It worked great!
After getting all settled in on Tuesday afternoon, we went down to the beach and played in the water. Josh and I didn’t wear our swimming suits because we weren’t planning to stay too long. I joked to the kids that if they went too far out in the water they would be busted because then Josh would have to dive in and get his clothes all wet to save them. I had no intention of being prophetic; but only a few minutes later Fay lost control of the floaty (a giant watermelon popsicle :D) and started panicking. Josh, sure enough, ran into the water to save her. Fortunately, he had just deposited his phone and keys with me and Bianca in the shade tent. After saving Fay, he figured he might as well just keep playing with the kids. They didn’t mind!
After the Rescue
When we got all dried off, we took a little drive to Heber for dinner where we got burgers, fries and shakes from Granny’s and ate them at a nearby park. Best camping-dinner ever!
We slept well in our mansion-tent (once Helen and Portia decided to settle down for the night) and when we got up, the kids all played at the playground right by our campsite. After that and breakfast, we headed back to the beach to play in the water. We were the second people on the beach at 9:00 when we arrived; by the time we left at noon, it was super crowded! There were many highlights from the beach: turning little girls into little mermaids, eating yummy snacks, the rental of the stand-up paddle-board, more floating on the giant popsicle, and sleeping in the shade-tent (guess who)!
After the beach, we went back to camp for a HOT lunch break, then we took off back home. It was lots of fun! But, as I said to Josh, no matter how long or how fun a trip is, it always feels nice to be back home.
On Saturday, we met up with some friends up Big Cottonwood Canyon for a baby hike and a BBQ. It took us an amusingly long time to figure out how to get to Hidden Falls (I guess it really was hidden); but it was worth the effort!
Fay and Friends at the Falls
Carter in a Crevice
All the kids together!
As we adults were chatting and enjoying our dinner, we heard the kids start erupting with excitement followed by a very distinct rattling sound. Daphne reported “I first thought it was a sprinkler; but then I saw that it was a snake and I knew that it was a rattlesnake.” We got everybody away to a safe distance and watched as the rattler slithered through some trees and then finally away from our BBQ. It was a little freaky, a little strangely coincidental (as Tanner had just killed and eaten a rattlesnake days before), and a little fascinating. I’m pleased to report that we all returned home safe and sound with lots of good memories! So fun!
Maybe I’m just a brat; but even with all these fun things we’re doing, I still feel like there is this cloud of COVID-despair and suffocation hanging over me and all of life. And yet, simultaneously, I feel like there are so many ways that we are being blessed BECAUSE we’re staying home and together and BECAUSE there’s so much uncertainty out in the world. I’m grateful for the ways the Lord is blessing us and helping us grow! But, at the same time, I am thinking that it would be REALLY nice to have our world back. I know that one day this will all just be a crazy page in our history; so I guess, for now, I’ll try to keep on being patient and looking for the good.
