Happy 15th Birthday Simone!

Well before we get to Monet's birthday in a couple more days,  here is Simone's update!  I like using the birthdays to recap what has been important to them in the past year.

I was driving her to school the other day and her hair was so cute and she knows how to curl it so well.  And we were laughing about 7th grade when I had to really remind her to even brush it.  Haha.  She has come so far.  Although I really have fond memories of that cute little outdoorsy, adventurous messy haired girl.  She loves thrift store fashion these days, its the new trend.  But she's got a cute style and its fun to see what she likes!

I used to do a lot of Elise and Monet's shopping.  However, I really have no sense of what is cool these days. Simone has earned a lot of money from her business and orders her own things and has them delivered.  And I offer to pay but she likes to be independent.  And I love to see what she buys!

Simone gave her first talk in church last week on forgiveness.   She and Miles had just been in a fight when they gave her the subject so that was great timing!  We really laughed about that.   Anyway, she did an excellent job.  I love what a descriptive writer she is.  She is really great storyteller.

Simone is very passionate about her climbing and about her animals.  Those are two major things in her life.  But this year she wanted to try pole vault.  It doesn't take too much time and they get to practice during school.  Yesterday she cleared 9ft.  It was her fourth time practicing, since they only set up the pit when the weather gets nice.  Her coach was excited for her.  He said 6 more inches and she could go to state.

After signing up for the track class,  she realized that she really wants to meet more friends at school.  So at the last minute she decided she wanted to squeeze in lacrosse as well.  Climbing is so awesome and she absolutely loves it but it doesn't help you have someone to sit with at lunch.  Being on a school team is very helpful with making more connections.  So we texted the coaches and luckily she could still play JV lacrosse.  It has been so fun she says.

So right now, she is doing climbing three hours a day, four times per week.  Plus comps.  Then she has track every other day plus meets.  And lacrosse which is also everyday.  Its crazy!  But like Monet she is enjoying it so far.  I am worried about overscheduling.  But some kids thrive on being busy and so far she is.  She is very active and enjoys learning new skills.  Its all over in six weeks.  So its not too long and if its too much she'll have a better idea of what to cut next year!

She wants to try cross country in the summer when the other stuff is over.   I think she will love it when she gets into it.  She and Monet both love competition.  

Her goat Florence should have her babies in the next couple weeks.  She has to take them to a goat lady's house while we are on spring break just in case.  The dogs follow Jared around all day until Simone is around.  Then they forget everyone else is around when Simone is there.  They just love her.

She received her patriarchal blessing this week and it was a really special experience!  She was very excited to get it and had been preparing for awhile.  I loved how it was so specific about her education!  Simone and Miles are less invested in school than the older girls.  And I loved having a little nod in that direction.

Sundays are so fun.  We got at least 50 lbs of dog poop cleaned up this weekend (not fun but necessary) and the kids had a great time playing lacrosse in the backyard.  Elise and Monet gave Soren and Simone a lot of great tips.  Soren still wants to sleep with Simone anytime she lets him.  She's very sweet with him and they hang out a lot at home.  I realized when they were playing lacrosse together that pretty soon he's going to be bigger than her and that seemed weird.  I know its probably a couple years off still.  But that is kinda crazy to think about.

She told me the other day she wants to learn how to make good sourdough and kombucha.  She took a foods class this year and has really enjoyed making some of the things at home.  She always makes a big yummy breakfast and I think she is going to be a little foodie.  She has always loved healthy food.  Even when she was a baby.  It's funny.  I would put green drink in her sippy cup and she would drink it.

One of her favorite things to do is her climbing trips.  They go to Southern Utah, Idaho, etc.  And they camp, make a big hash for breakfast, and climb.  She loves it and really looks forward to those trips.

At her last climbing comp, she got really pumped and didn't complete some of the climbs.  Rope season has just started so she assumed she just hadn't built her endurance yet, but her coach said it was because she was doing a lot of lockoffs and wasn't conserving her energy as well as she needed to on the big walls.  Ropes are different than bouldering and she was climbing the ropes walls like she does boulders.  But she qualified for regionals so we will be in Boise soon.

I really love Simone's sense of humor.  She still just has a great laugh.  She has a big heart and is very playful.  She is very social and fun loving.  I'm really glad we have Simone in our family!

Thoughts on Marriage

It was our 25th Anniversary last month!  That is a big one.  Check out my beautiful bouquet!

We went out to dinner at Sundance.  We had wanted to go back to St. George but decided to postpone and do a fun trip later.  

But we've been thinking a lot about marriage recently.  Having Elise married brought so many memories of us as newlyweds trying to figure things out.

And also having two (almost three) dating aged kids makes you think.  I need to teach them what to look for in a future spouse.  I used to think that it didn't really matter too much who you date in high school because those relationships are so short and usually just last a few months.  But I realized that they are actually more important than we might have thought.  I want my kids prepared either way.  And to understand what is important in any relationship, whatever the duration may be.

So a couple things happened this week.

Simone got her patriarchal blessing.  And the patriarch asked us to give some of our background of growing up.  Jared mentioned that he'd lived in all kinds of places.  California, Provo while his mom was doing her master degree, and back to Northern California, then Southern California.  And I guess I followed suit and somehow came up that both our parents were divorced.

And he said, okay so both your parents are divorced so that means..., but you guys are good you've made it 25 years.  It was an awkward moment.  I have strong feelings about this issue and I kinda hate it when people assume that because your parents are divorced that we are "at risk" or whatever.  But I bumbled it and said something about how "yeah you just never know, my parents got divorced at 28 years."  And what I really meant was, you can't ever just take your marriage for granted.  Whether its 1 year, or 25 years.  You are never home-free.

We have two sets of parents each.  We have the most wonderful people in our lives.  And it has worked out.  But divorce is really tough.  I never want to go through that and witnessing how sad and complicated divorce is, I think I have an advantage, not a disadvantage to having a successful marriage.  My advantage is that I'm not naive to what happens during the process.  It's hard.  I'm not going to underestimate it.

I know there are times when it is a necessary hard.  So I'm not discounting that for anyone either.  But you do what you can to avoid it.

So then yesterday Monet interviewed us for her Eternal Families class.  The Proclamation on the Family states that husband and wives have a solemn responsibility to love and care for one another.  How have we done that?

There are so many answers to that question.  But I think of the time when we most had to support one another.  We had a lot of financial stresses about the time when Simone was born.  We had an investment that went bad.  The man who stole our money later went to jail for many years, but it really set us into a financial tailspin and was really tough.  The timing was awful.  And it corresponded with having a newborn, a ton of medical/dental bills etc.

Anyway, what I remember most about that time is how we figured out how to work together to stay positive.  I knew if I had a really stressful day when I felt overwhelmed, Jared would support me.  And vice versa.  We had this unspoken agreement that we didn't have bad days at the same time.  I think of it like drafting in a bike ride.  You have to take turns leading and give the other person a break sometimes.  It would be really hard to be the one out front ALL the time.  We have to be there for each other and take your turn.

I see some marriages where there is one person who is pulling all the weight.  And it looks really tough to me.  So when you are dating, look for someone who can reciprocate and care for you.  If you are always the giver, you need to get out of that relationship.  Because it will eventually be very lonely or you will burn out.

Something else I've learned over the years is not to be afraid to ask for what I want or need.  It's okay to have needs.  You can say what is important to you or what would make you happy.  Your spouse wants to make you happy.  If you have a sad Mother's Day, learn from it and communicate what would be a great one.  Same for birthdays and special occasions.  Don't have invisible expectations.  Trying to be low maintenance and squashing your expectations then being sad and passive aggressive is way more confusing than just being proactive and clear about it.  I see women especially do this.  There is a nursery that has the most beautiful flowers and I REALLY love those flowers.   This year I dropped the hint and Jared got me the prettiest anniversary flowers! I loved them so much.  And he loved knowing what would really be the perfect gift for me and not having to stress about it.  

The last thought that stood out to me was that sometimes we need to work on our skillset.  Just having the desire to have a good marriage isn't enough sometimes.  In doTERRA we are taught to be successful we need to have the right mindset, skillset, and toolset. In marriage you also have to work on developing skills.  When we were first married we took a couple marriage classes together at BYU that talked about communication, etc.  We were recently talking about how we both need to learn how to be better at validating to improve our communication.  And part of a toolset could be having a therapist.  Or making sure to have a date night often, etc.  Anyway, I love this concept and it helps me to review what areas we need to develop to have a better relationship.

Maybe this concept could be applied to serious dating when evaluating whether someone is the right person to marry.  Sometimes we are drawn to people that aren't a good match for us and will not result in a happy ending.  So in addition to having a great time together and feeling like its a match, think about these things as well:

Mindset: Committed and makes the relationship a priority.  Loves you and cares for your feelings and happiness.  Not just a taker.  Some people are innately selfish and/or unstable.  Avoid these people unless you want a really hard life for both you and your children.  Part of the right mindset is having a proactive nature.  Someone who takes responsibility.

Skillset: Good communication skills.  You enjoy each other and have fun together.   Treats you with love and respect.  Cultivates humility and Christ-like attributes.   

And finally, are they motivated to utilize the necessary tools and resources to improve the relationship?  Classes, books, therapy, date nights, trips, plans special occasions.  I think all of these are bonding tools and conflict resolution tools that can improve the mindset and skillset.

First Bikeride of the Season

Its Spring! 

We got E-bikes for Christmas/my birthday and the weather is just getting nice so we are excited to use them.  We needed to install the extra passenger seat so I brought one of them inside and thought maybe Miles could do it.  He was busy this week selling his other vending machines and all of the things that come with that so it sat in the family room for awhile.

This morning I finally got tired of having it in the family room and figured I will just do it.  Then Soren wanted to help.  It was cute to see how excited he was to work on it too.  And we got it all figured out and I drove him to school on the bike!  It was so fun and now I'm excited for summer and trips to get snow cones on our bikes.  Its going to be 70 degrees this weekend!  I'm so excited.  Time to plant a few things.

This Week

 This week was fun!  I got 42 of the 120 hours of my real estate license completed.  I started looking at investment properties.  We went to an open house and were pretty close to making an offer but decided to wait.  

I got in four Orangetheory workouts and was able to run again!  It was hard but my hip was okay!  

We got the dogs groomed, the cat fixed (he's beating up the neighbors cats :(.  It's hard to believe our sweet, precious Milo could be such a bully.  I feel so bad, and so surprised.  He is so cuddly and sweet at home.  Apparently he waits on the neighbors back patio until their cat comes out so he can fight them.  Shoot!  Hopefully he will have less hormones now and won't want to fight all the time.  

We went on the best date night: snowshoeing to a fancy dinner in a yurt and meeting lots of fun new people there.  We enjoyed talking to so many fun people.  Most were from out of state.  And one was from Utah but we realized how different Utah can be.  They have lived here 10 years and are teachers at a private school in Salt Lake.  They asked us a lot of cultural questions about our faith and it was so interesting to see how little people actually know when most of their friends are not LDS people.  They were really fun people.

Simone started lacrosse and had three games. She did great!  It was fun to watch a lacrosse game again. We did a lot of spring clean up in the yard, Simone cleaned the coops, picked up poop.  Did a lot of driving her around!  She has another comp this week.  She's giving a talk on Sunday.  

Miles spent a lot of time on the garage.  Its going to need another day of work before it really looks good but its an improvement for sure.  He pulled an engine from another car at the dump that he can sell and make a lot of profit on.   He came home covered in grease and full of more junkyard stories.  He meets the most random people.  He sold his other vending machines and made a really good chunk of change for a high school kid.  He is so funny I told him how impressed I was that he had figured all this car stuff out.  And he just shrugged and said, "Mom, any redneck can do it."  Love Miles.  But I could tell he was excited and proud of himself for pulling that other engine out it took a lot longer than the last one.  He gets all the parts off and then has it dipped to clean everything off and can make a lot of money selling everything.  He sold a transmission and another engine a few weeks ago.  And the actual engine block has a hole from a piston or something so he wants to make a coffee table out of it.  It's funny the stuff he comes up with.  As always, I'm impressed with his ingenuity.  I've been spending a LOT of time trying to clean up all his greasy clothes though.  We hauled a lot of stuff to the dump and Savers, which feels good.  And now I have even more!  

Elise and Ethan bought their first car!  Their other car had over 200K miles on it and had some mechanical issues.  We did a lot of shuffling cars around to help them out.  Elise got a nanny job for the summer that she's excited about.  She painted the cutest art for her apartment.  They have been doing a lot of listings for Jared from these auctions he purchased.  So we get to see them a lot which is fun.  

Its been fun and busy!  I realized how much happier I am when I have a lot going on.  I'm really excited to get my Real Estate License again.

Staying Hard

Monet is really enjoying the Farm Team.  It's basically like a running club.  They had a time trial for the mile yesterday and she got 5:13!  She usually ran the 1600 in high school which is about 2 seconds shorter than the mile.  So her mile equivalent yesterday was three seconds faster than her best high school time, which is really great for the start of the season.  She missed her senior season because of covid and that was a bummer because that also started with a really fast indoor time.  Now she gets another chance to see how much time she can shave off.

She is calculating in her mind what her next goal should be.  Its fun to see her so happy and so excited for the friendships and challenge that comes with this fun group.  

A couple months ago she read a book by David Goggins and loved it.  I've never read his book but his philosophy seems to be seeking challenges to expand your discipline.  So I'm not surprised that Monet enjoyed it.  I think that has always been her philosophy on a lot of things.  So she did his challenge of running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours.  She seemed to just love it and got everyone in the family to run with her.  Elise is reading the book now too.

He talks about taking responsibility, stop feeling sorry for yourself, staying hard and grinding.  He swears so much but he is an interesting guy.  I think Monet seems really happy and its helped her to move past some negative things she's been dealing with.  

Mom's Birthday Trip to Carmel

My moms 75th birthday was in January and we decided to celebrate with a weekend girls trip in Carmel!  

I think one of the biggest blessings I have is my four sisters!  I'm just going to copy Rachels insta caption because she said it best:

"We did walks along the beach into town, Carmel Art Galleries, Point Lobos hiking, 17 mile drive, best dinners at Pebble Beach, Late nights and early jammy mornings talking and laughing, free therapy sessions from a group of the kindest and wisest women."

Really had the best time.  We are all different, and so complementary.  I love these women!   We stayed at a really cute airbnb.  

We also got to go back to my moms house for an afternoon to see Dimitrios and he made us all the best salad from Miner's lettuce he foraged from his yard.  It was incredible!  He's such an amazing cook.  I got to take more portraits of the dogs.  And we loved hearing the story about how Dimitrios used the branches  from a redwood that blew down to build his round pen.  

Sledding at Soldier Hollow

 Our neighborhood put together a sledding night at Soldier Hollow and lucky me that all my kids wanted to come!  Ethans friend Matt came too and that was fun to see him too.  We went to Pizzeria 712 after and it was a super fun night!

Nana and Papa's House

 The following week after returning from the bay area, we headed to Orange County!  This time we took the 3 that stayed home: Miles, Monet and Soren.  It was another fun relaxing weekend and we were excited for a sunny beach day in February.  Soren was so excited to see all his cousins again!  

I love to see Jared going to his dad's house because it puts him right into a happy sports coma.  He loves watching sports with his dad and brothers.  When you grow up with 10 brothers, it is a bonding thing and there are a lot of good associations.  Nana and Papa are always so fun to talk to.  Monet loved doing her runs at sea level.  

Tacos!

Pointsettia bush!  Its like 7 feet tall!