Run The River

Tuesday night we had our New Beginnings program.  This is a night to introduce the girls who will be moving into the Young Women program (turning 12) in the next year to the program and to Personal Progress, a faith and testimony building program for the young women of the church, that they do, for the most part, on their own time over their years in the young women program, thus the "personal" part.

I had thought we might do a birthday party theme, since our one incoming girl for 2013 would be celebrating her 12th birthday on the night of our New Beginnings program.  But I was feeling really uninspired.  Then, a little over a month ago, I was reading a book on survival.  There was a section where the author spoke about white water rafting, and I got to thinking about how many times I had done this in my life, and how easily you could draw parallels between the gospel, personal progress, and river running.  The idea came to me as I was settling into bed for the night, but I couldn't sleep once I started thinking, so I got up, turned on the computer, and started drafting out my idea.  

I was so happy with it!  And over the next few weeks as I fine tuned it, I got really excited.  I was very nervous about the night.  In the past we have found great ideas online and used them for our programs.  But this one was born from my own imagination and labor and I wanted it to go well.  I think it really did!  It absolutely helped that I have an amazing presidency and a fantastic group of young women who I admire greatly.   

Our Laurel class president conducted, navigating us through the program.  I introduced the theme with this opening: 

I have had the opportunity to experience a lot of whitewater rafting in my life.  It was something my family really enjoyed doing together.  I've been down the Deschutes and Salmon Rivers in Oregon several times, the Snake River in Idaho, and the Mendenhall River in Alaska.  I've also done many float trips, on the Yakima, the Snohomish, the American, to name a few.  What does it mean to "run" a river?  That is the term used for navigating yourself from one point in the river to another, through rapids, around obstacles, arriving safely at the end where you find calm waters.  If you haven't had the opportunity to run a river before, I encourage you to find a chance to do it, and if you have run even one river, it is impossible to reflect upon your experience and not see the parallels between running a piece of a river and living our lives.  Tonight we will talk about some of these parallels and the ways we can best equip ourselves to run the river of our lives. 

The room and treats were all in a blue and green color scheme, to give it a rivery feel.  My fantastic secretary, Julie, made the cutest life jacket invitations.  And my two awesome counselors, Stephanie and Maggie, stepped it up on the food, one making a cupcake river scene and the other making strawberry shortcake boats, complete with oars!  So awesome!

To introduce the three young women classes, Beehives, Mia Maids and Laurels, as well as the new incoming girls we talked about how it is important to get to know and put your trust in the people in your boat, because for your trip down the river, your enjoyment, and even your life, can depend on those who are riding the river alongside you.  My class presidents each introduced their class, as well as, the goals and theme of their age group in young women.  Next, each of the values in the young women program: faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and virtue, were related to some aspect of river running.  In order those were: life jackets/safety gear (faith), boats (divine nature...etc.), class one rapids, class two rapids, class three rapids, class four and five rapids, class six rapids/portage, and calm waters.  Each of the values were connected to either how they relate to necessary river running equipment (faith and divine nature), or how understanding them through doing your personal progress can help you navigate the various elements of the river as you run it (all the rest).  And there was a power point presentation with pictures of the river running element with its connected Young Women value.  These were all presented by the girls. 

I concluded the night with the remarks below describing one of my river rafting experiences.  It wasn't even one of the exciting river rafting adventures I have been on.  It was supposed to be a simple float trip down a lazy section of the calm late-August Provo River: 

I said at the beginning that I have had a lot of opportunity to run rivers.  Of all the times I have ridden rivers, all the rapids I have faced, the scariest experience I had on a river was on a quiet, sunny summer day, floating in a rented inflatable boat down the lazy, shallow Provo River.   Adam and I had just moved back to Provo with our two little boys, Zac was nearly three and Ben was almost one.  We had rented a boat and four life jackets for the day for a simple float trip down the river.  The water was calm and peaceful and we could see the bottom of the river most of the way.  The boys thought it was the best thing we had ever done.

Shortly after we started our trip down the river, we discovered that the middle seat was losing a little air.  We weren't too concerned, because the leak was obviously slow and our float wouldn't be too long, plus, the seat had a separate air chamber, so the loss of air in the seat wasn't compromising the air in the outer structure of the boat.  So we floated on.  About 2/3rds of the way to the take-out, we came to a point where the river dipped a bit and flowed below an old train trestle.  The speed of the river picked up for the dip, and a minor class one rapid artificially created by the trestle formed, and the support post of the trestle that had been sunk into the river bed was sucking us in towards it.  Our speed wasn't bad, and we were navigating well, so we angled ourselves along the side so that we'd give it a little bump and be pushed out on the other side of the trestle post.   In places where rapids of this kind exist, either natural, like a boulder in the water, or man made, like that trestle, the rip currents created by the presence of the object will, over time, displace the rock and sand at the bottom, making the river bottom deeper at that point.

Perhaps, with hindsight being 20/20, we shouldn't have taken our little boys on a float.  It may sound crazy now, but let me be clear that at the time we thought what we were doing was just going to be fun and completely safe.  We had floated the river before and felt we knew it was calm and quiet; we were all in life jackets; Adam had a hold of Zac and I had Ben secured tightly in my arms through the entire experience.  But sometimes things just don't go as planned, true of any river run or any experience in life, and that one slow leak in the seat set us up for a brief yet terrifying river situation.  All would have been well if our boat had been fully inflated, but because of the middle seat's softness, the boat bumped, and then folded just a bit and dumped us.     

Being dumped into the river when you expected a little bump is very shocking, but with two little boys in our care, the moment became scary very fast.  Ben and I were on that soft middle seat, so we were kicked out pretty good.  I was holding tight to Ben's life jacket sides as our heads fully submerged in the deep water that had been created by the current.  Zac was sitting on Adam's lap in the back, and with the shift in weight as Ben and I were tossed, they went in with just a small splash, barely going under.

Everything happened in seconds, but I still remember it all so clearly, as if time switched into slow motion.  I was in the cold, wet darkness, the river continuing to push me downstream.  The only thought in my head was: "Get Ben up out of the water."  Upon opening my eyes under the water all I could see was black and dark, but then I tipped my head up and I could see the light of the sun shining on the river above the water line.  That light was our hope, that light was our safety.  I pushed my arms up, helping Ben's life jacket in its job, thrusting Ben to the surface.  I can still see his tiny life-jacketed body rising up into the light above me.  A few seconds later my own head broke the surface.  Just at that moment the small rip current and rapids created by the dip in the river and the trestle were over and the bottom quickly rose up to meet my feet.  We were wet, cold and shaken up, but we were safe.  No one had swallowed water, everything was fine.  Ben wasn't even upset.  What had seemed like minutes passing had been but a handful of seconds.

There are two things I want to point out from this story.  If our boat had not been compromised by the slow leak in the seat, we never would have dumped into the river.  The full, filled seat would have held firm as it was supposed to, and we would have bounced off of the trestle as we had intended.  Proper equipment was the key to our safety.  Thankfully we all had the back-up precaution of life jackets when our boat became compromised.  We can easily see the parallels to the gospel here.  We have the power to equip ourselves with the things that will keep us safe: scripture study, prayer, church attendance, good friend choices and striving ever to be worthy to attend the temple.  Faulty equipment will not keep us safe: trusting in the ways of the world, attaching ourselves to those who don't support us in our values, seeking value in things that simply don't matter in the eternal scheme of things, trusting more to knowledge than faith, lowering your standards for temporary happiness.  You will discover sooner or later that putting your trust in these things was just like us putting our trust in our semi-filled boat.  They seem sturdy, they seem like they are right because they feel OK, it's not like our boat was sinking--we were afloat, but when the waters got rough, we were shocked to find, as so many are when they find their faith in the world was misplaced, the trust we had in a faulty boat did nothing but dump us in the water.

The other parallel I'd like to define is the instinctual desire I had to push toward the light.  In the light I knew there was safety for my son.  I just needed him to reach that light, and I hoped I'd reach it soon after he did.  In the black, dark, shock of the water the light was always there.  I looked for it and found it.  It had never failed me.  Even though the life jackets were pulling us up towards the light already, I desired to reach it so badly that I needed to do something to get us there faster.  I wanted to add my effort to that of the jackets.  Christ is always there, His Light is always shining down upon us.  The life jacket of His love and his atoning sacrifice is lifting us up, pulling us toward the light, out of the dark and cold.  But there are those that for some reason decide to ignore the light. 

 If you've ever played in a cold river, stream, pool or ocean, you know how you can slowly become acclimated to the coldness of the water.  It's freezing at first, but as you get deeper in and spend more time in it, it bothers you less.  This happens to people with sin and doubt.  They get used to the darkness and cold and forget the light is there.  Some go to the extreme of taking off their life jacket, feeling overly confident in the cold water, choosing to remain below the surface, looking down towards the unseen bottom in an effort to pretend the light is no longer there or feeling lost enough that they believe that the light can no longer can reach them.   I hope that none of us ever find ourselves there.  I hope that right now, in your youth, you are working to increase your faith so that even in dark times each of you will want to reach up to the Light; that you desire it so much that you are willing to lend your effort to His lifting and that thrusting yourselves upwards by living your standards and following the counsel of the scriptures and prophets.  And I hope, most of all, each of us always knows that THE LIGHT IS THERE.  Christ is there!  Always!  We only need to seek Him.  If necessary, repent of favoring the cold and dark, or perhaps even of removing the life jacket He has offered us.  We can put it back on through His atonement and grace, and through prayer, study, and faith we can wrench ourselves from the grasp of the frigid waters, even though we've become used to them and it is hard, leaving our dark world behind for life in the light.

Notice on our journey down this river tonight that we never reached the end.  The river of our lives is long and will have many of these types of challenges along the way.  They will change as we grow older; Satan will find new ways to throw rapids and hardships in our path; the Lord will allow challenges to come to us to give us strength and determination.  There are many ways we are instructed that can help us navigate the rapids of life, scripture study, prayer, choosing friends who share your values, attending church and temple activities to surround yourself with people who allow you to be separate from the world for a bit.

I would like to add to that list something that the young women of our church have been given as a special gift from our inspired church leaders.   Personal Progress is a tool that helps us to be properly guided, properly equipped and find safety along the way.  The knowledge and the testimony that we can glean from doing our personal progress helps us navigate the rough waters and seek safety when life's trials become so difficult that we need to get off the river altogether and portage our boat.  Personal Progress connects the scriptures and the Spirit to our own personal life experiences, so that when difficulties arise we have something concrete and firm to trust in: our faith in our Savior. 

I hope you have seen tonight the strength that can be found in doing your personal progress.  I hope you recognize how it can help equip you to face the rapids that will surely come into your lives.  I encourage those of you who are already doing your personal progress to carry on with purpose.  Don't do it to get it done, do it with your heart and mind open to the Spirit of testimony and it will surely change you and change your life.  It can help you become more and understand more about who you are.  And for those of you who are just getting started or who have yet to start, begin now with full purpose of heart for all that this program can do for you.  We ARE beloved daughters of our Heavenly Father.  I am honored to know you.  I see His countenance in all of you.  Our Savior is real.  The gift and promise of His atonement is always, ALWAYS available to us.  Amen.

The last part before refreshments was a slide show showing pictures of rivers, temples and the girls to Garth Brooks' The River.  It was lovely!

It was a great night and I wanted to preserve it in this post, as well as savor the happy and contented feeling I have just a bit from a job well done!

 

 

Bits of Life in February

Adam and I had a great time at the adult-only ward party.  We had some great food, played some Minute-to-Win-It games that had us all in uproarious laughter, and then learned a fun line dance.  I think I got the 3-boot slap part exactly one time.  But best of all was the time spent with friends without worrying if our kids were having a fist fight in the hallways.

Thursday Tommy drew his very first person.  Luke colors all the time, and I think, with that example, Tommy finally decided to give making something more than scribbles a try.  I love it!  Good work, Tom!  In other Tommy news, I got my littlest man set at a preschool this week.  I am excited about it.  Just two days a week in the mornings at an in-home preschool with a teacher I have heard nothing but wonderful things about.  He can't wait.  He talks about "his preschool" every day now!

Ruby loves her sunny spot on the stairs.  You can often find her here, sunning herself like a lizard, so this week I had to snap a shot of her basking in the warm glory of her sunny spot.  We sure do love our Ruby-girl!

I don't have a lot of time for playing a big role in the PTO, but this year I have taken on a minor job of helping with the Box Tops.  When turn-in time comes around I am part of the committee that checks expiration dates, trims them down for mailing in, and then groups them into packets of 50.  Can you say, "Te-di-ous?!"  But it's my little part, and I can do it at home, so I'm glad for it.

Wednesday Zac and Josh had the final 2 of our annual kid check-ups.  Yes, Josh has been 8-years-old for 4 months, and Zac has been 12 for two, but somewhere I got behind, and since insurance only pays for one well-child visit a year....  I am glad I had the boys bring their lunches from school, it ended up being a long wait and they missed their lunchtime at school.  Other than the wait and flu shots for the both of the boys (with one month of flu season left!), it was a good visit.  The boys received clean bills of health!  Zac is in the 6th percentile for height and Josh is in the 35th.  No surprise on either of those two! 

We did receive the bad news that our beloved PA, Amy, is moving (to Port Angeles, WA!).  One of the things I hated about moving, back when we were moving so much, was losing pediatricians we had come to love.  It feels like that.  Total bummer.  We like the other physicians in the office, but Amy is who we saw the most.  Even though my boys are generally pretty healthy, so we aren't in the office a ton, she knows us and it felt like she was happy to see us when we came in.  If someone got something contagious, like strep, she'd say, "If anyone else gets these symptoms, just call me and I'll fax a prescription so you don't have to come in again."  A couple of days after a visit, she would call in to check on the boys and see how they were doing.  She took care of us and has become a friend.  We will miss her!  But at least she and I are now facebook friends, so we can keep in touch.  Thank you, technology!  The boys got over the loss much more quickly than I did, I'm still sad.  I think their post-shot milkshakes softened the blow.  Maybe I should have had one too!

My dad ran across this awesome old family photo and texted it to my sister and I.  Wow, did that bring me back or what?!  Sweet.  Check out my pink/blue/white acid wash jeans and Fade In shirt in matching colors.  I was so proud of that outfit!  And my sister with her amazing high bangs.  As I moved from matching perms/bangs with my mom, as seen in this photo, to trendier bang styles, no matter how high I attempted to get mine, hers were always way higher.  Love this pic. 

Snow Day Hooray!

Last night Zac opened the freezer, turned around once, and then flushed an ice cube down the toilet.  That is why it snowed 9 inches at our house yesterday and a snow day was called, cancelling school.  I am sure of it.  As we watched the snow pile up last night we were all feeling giddy...the snow day was coming!  We popped some corn, let the big boys stay up late and watched a movie.  I think we had decided that if D20 didn't call a snow day, we would have one anyway.

We have had ONE lame snow day this year, it didn't even really snow enough to qualify for the snow day that was called, and we didn't want it because it was the day before winter break, which is actually a really fun day to go to school.  So today was a day to celebrate!  And we sure did, in true Conlin snow day fashion, including sledding, snow play, hot cocoa with many marshmallows and movies watched under snuggly warm blankets.  The day was pretty chilly and windy.  Hurts-your-face-cold, as the boys called it, so we didn't spend a lot of time outside, but when we mummified ourselves in warm layers enough, we lasted 30-45 minutes.  Not gonna lie.  It was cold.

I love it.  The boys love it.  Snow days are so nice.

Little interesting fact (to no one but me probably, and maybe my mom): The snow that came down last night set a new record for total snowfall on February 20th in Colorado Springs (official total: 7.6 inches measured at whatever place it is that they take the official snowfall total).  The last record was 5.3 inches, set on February 20th, 1913.  That's exactly 100 years ago!  

 

The Long Lost Plumber Brother

This weekend Luke went to a friend's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese.  Matthew's mom had made everyone a Jake and the Neverland Pirates scarf and pirate eye patch to wear throughout the party.  It was adorable seeing all the little pirates running amok at Chuck-E's!

Luke had a great time, and I had a great time watching him have a great time.  You know that feeling?  That good, contented feeling of watching your kids having a fantastic time?  He was so careful with all of his coins, considering each game and whether it looked good for playing or not.  His favorite game was one where he shot a coin into the mouth of a dinosaur.  If you got the coin in you got five tickets!  He made it all four times he played!  A close second favorite was playing Mario Kart because the game took a photo of your face, Marioed-up, to use as your character during the race.  Who knew Mario and Luigi had a long lost brother, Lukio?!

Chores in the Conlin Home

Yep, my boys do them.  And I thought it might be something they'd be interested in being reminded of someday.  Thus was born this post.  They aren't too grumpy about chores, which is nice.  Well, the big boys aren't at least.  And Tommy LOVES to "help" which is so unhelpful, but I would never stifle enthusiasm for cleaning, so I just follow him and give whatever he has done a "mommy touch up" {*complete reworking} when he's moved on.  Which leaves Luke...who isn't a chore fan, but is getting better about it...after 20 reminders.

We work on bathrooms together so I can instruct the boys in the ways of detailing: shining up the faucets, wiping down the outside and base of the toilet bowl and scrubbing in the corners of...everything.  We have four bathrooms: boys', master, and the half bath and the basement bath, the latter two get put together as one for chores because the shower in the guest bath rarely needs cleaning, which makes it easier.  Each of the big boys are given one of the three bathroom assignments.  Tommy and Luke like to "assist" with the toilets and mirrors.  It's kind of nice to work together.  We get to chat, it's amazing how my boys reveal details of their lives while cleaning bathrooms, and I get to show them what clean looks like to me.

In addition, the big boys each have a floor they have to vacuum once a week on the weekend, while I take the mid-week shifts.  Sometimes I find myself taking the weekend shift too, depending on how much soccer is going on.  I know, I know.  Not the teaching them the right thing.   Sometimes it is easier to just do it myself early on in the day, before toys get strewn about, while they are all out at games.  I'm working on getting better about this, which really means ME getting better about making sure I ignore the urge to just get it done.  

The boys also each have everyday kind of jobs--Zac: scoop the poop, Ben: empty the dishwasher, Josh: trash boy, Luke: empty the silverware, Tom: water the plants (WITH Mom's help! "It's not that thirsty, Tommy!").  And while I do all the laundry because it keeps clothing that is distributed and handed-down among five boys straight, they are in charge of taking up their baskets and putting away their clothes...nicely...or they have to fold it up and put it away again. {insert evil laugh}

Every night before bed is clean-up time.  The boys have to tidy up all the rooms of the house before bed.  It is one big daily clean up, sometimes two if the house gets really bad, but usually just one.  It keeps me sane.  It keeps them from dumping too much out all at once because they know they have to clean up everything they get out.  It keeps Tommy's collection and toy miscellany habits from cluttering up the house too much.  Sometimes they are great about it, sometimes I find dirty socks hastily picked up and stuffed into the toy box instead of thrown into the laundry.  Also, this is what I have to say a lot: "I didn't ask who got it out; I asked you to put it away.  We all do our part to help each other."  Nonetheless, it's mostly a good arrangement.

There are additional chores that the doing of which can earn the boys extra money, like bathing and brushing Ruby, or cleaning the spots off of the couch.  These are the ones they get really excited about. And there are "consequence" chores, a.k.a. "dirty jobs" that they must do when they've made a bad choice about something, like organizing the Tupperware.

And all the while we sing "Put your shoulder to the wheel, push along!  Do your duty with a heart full of so-ong!  We all have work.  Let no one shirk...."  Really.  We do.

Presidents' Day

Adam and Zac, along with Jacob and Michael Gutierrez, friends of ours from church, went in search of snow at Copper Mountain early, early, early.  The rest of us started off late and lazy.  Then came the fun.  Then came the bickering.  Then came the friends to play for Luke, Josh and Ben each, which ceased the bickering and returned the fun.  Then we had soup for dinner, had a nice {mandatory} lesson by Josh on the value of treating others with kindness and thinking about others before ourselves, and watched the second half of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the first half having been viewed the night before.  And that was our Presidents' Day in six sentences.

The Way We Do Valentine's Day

I've really come to enjoy Valentine's Day, I think mostly because we keep it low key.  Not that a huge display of romance is a bad thing, but I find that some things are best left chill.  It's a great day to celebrate love and to do the little things that show our love for one another, but we stick to simple.  No stress.  No high expectations.  High expectations are the killer of special day happiness.  Definitely NO going out.  Whew!  Way too many crowds.  We are mellow Valentine's Dayers.  Maybe when we are older and all the boys are celebrating the day with their own wives, we might go crazy and hit a bed and breakfast to celebrate.  But for now, it is just right.

• Since February day one, I put up a little love note to each of the boys on their bedroom door every day, to tell them some of the things I love about them.  I got them ready ahead of time, so while I was in WA and CA Adam put them up for me, and Zac put up Adam's.  I was happy knowing that they were going up on the door even while I was gone.  The boys just loved it!  They didn't want me to stop on the 14th! (this was a perfect, my-level Pinterest idea!)
• I helped Luke make a Love Monster valentine collection box.  He was so happy with it!  It was just Luke's style.  I also marginally assisted Ben in his construction of a black hole/universe valentine box.  His class is studying forms of energy and Ben's favorite is dark energy, found in outer space, the energy that is partially responsible for the expansion of the universe.  The counterpart to dark matter.  His class was assigned to make a valentine collection box that represented some form of energy.  I assure you among the giant iPods and aluminum foil-covered toasters, Ben's was quite the unique creation! 
• I bought the boys some little boxes of treats and gave them some hugs and kisses...because what says "I love you on Valentine's Day-the other Halloween-and every other day of the year" better than candy?  They were happy.  Our dental budget may not be.
• The school gave the boys some love by letting them run the big circular hallway--usually a huge no-no--in the annual Lynx Laps fundraiser.  The kids get pledges for how many laps they will do, walk-a-thon style, then each grade gets about 16 minutes to run around the building as many times as possible.  Ben took the school record with 33 laps! 
• Adam got candy too...and a very cute mug.  And kisses.
• Because he didn't think one looked bushy and full enough, Adam brought me two beautiful bunches of mixed blooms.  I think roses are lovely and delicious-smelling flowers, but what I really love is a mixed bunch that looks more like it was just picked up from a Pike Place Market flower stall than it was grabbed from the flower case at the grocery.  I love that Adam knows this about me!
• Zac came home with two anonymous Val-o-Grams from school.  Who are these girls who are willing to spend $2 to send my boy some Valentine's Day sweetness?
• Luke turned his lips green with Lik-M-Aid.  I used to LOVE that stuff as a kid!  Especially the stick, forget the powder.  But they didn't make the blue-changes-to-green kind back then, so maybe that would have won me over.  Luke sure loved it!
• I loved on my family by making our favorite dinner: teriyaki pork chops with blueberry-serrano-lime relish (oh my, death by deliciousness!), steamed broccoli and the extremely labor intensive, but highly delicious, citrus salad.  It's Adam's favorite.  And I sure do love my guy!