The Holland Family

Tonight was our ward party, and I was in charge of the Primary children acting out the nativity. I spent a good part of the day, not to mention quite a bit of time these past two weeks getting ready for this. I spent several hours preparing food for the potluck, finding 40+ costumes, making assignments for the main parts, preparing the script, etc. In all of the rush, I forgot to bring a baby Jesus. What is a nativity with the Christ child? Thankfully, we found a cat in the nursery that we wrapped in a blanket and delivered to Mary a little late. This caused me to reflect on how I am celebrating the season, and if I may be forgetting again, the focus of it all.

Last week I found the scrap of paper that I had recorded the memorable moments of Holland Family Yellowstone Vacation. They were:

1. Josie saw a shark in every river
2. Lee saw a hippo
3. Josie missed Old Faithful erupting
4. Animals we really saw: A pair of bald eagles, bison, elk, pelicans, ravens and osprey--identified thanks to my trusty bird field guide :)
5. A Bison charged our group, after a Ranger said it was safe to pass by the beast
6. An erratic geyser erupted as Lee, Will and Josie walked by
7. Will kicked a rock and narrowly missed two people
8. Josie pouted every step she walked about being too tired, but smiled for every picture
9. We went on a bike ride and saw a natural bridge
10. Some random guy tried to convince us that animal excrement on the ground in a geyser basin was really 100+ turtles that had crawled out of the river and been cooked

I became acquainted with this quote when BYU President Merrill J. Bateman quoted it in his devotional address 9-12-2001--the day after September 11.

"Men may fail in this country, earthquakes may come, seas may heave beyond their bounds, there may be great drought, disaster, and hardship, but this nation, founded on principles laid down by men whom God raised up, will never fail. This is the cradle of humanity, where life on this earth began in the Garden of Eden. This is the place of the new Jerusalem. This is the place that the Lord said is favored above all other nations in all the world. This is the place where the Savior will come to His temple. This is the favored land in all the world. Yes, I repeat, men may fail, but this nation won’t fail. I have faith in America; you and I must have faith in America, if we understand the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

-Pres. Harold B. Lee, from devotional talk given at Rick's College October 26, 1973.

Here you see me, Will and reporter Brian Carlson in the studios of ABC4 News in Salt Lake City. Will and I and the "opportunity" to appear on their morning news show to talk about food allergies. Will was so excited--I was nervous. I felt good about how it all went. All night I kept dreaming that either I had missed the appointment or that it was turning out like Richard Dreyfuss's experience on Good Morning America in the movie, What About Bob? So, since neither of those nightmares came to fruition, it was a success! I never would have imagined that I would agree to to a live TV interview, especially at 6:30 in the morning. I hate putting myself "out there" like that. It's amazing the things we are willing to do for the good of our kids.

Why?

1. Extra cheesy biographies. I love the cheesy profiles on various athletes that makes me want to cheer for them, regardless of who I was rooting for before I watched the vignette. Yes, I am easily manipulated by the media on this topic.

2. Killer suspense. It is so fun to hide Lee's phone and keep him from his computer so he can't look up results before we watch the event on TV.

3. Memories... Every time the Olympics come around I think about watching the games with my family. I remember how growing up David owned the TV and didn't allow us to watch anything but the games. I remember how exciting 2002 was, and the night of the women's figure skating. How many people can say they had a baby when the Olympics were in town?

4. Track and Field. When else am I going to carve out the time to watch a women's marathon and even get a little teary-eyed at the finish?

5. Dreaming big... We went for a walk yesterday and the whole time Will and Josie were running, jumping, doing somersaults, and then jumping up into the victory pose. As I laughed and cheered them on, I remembered how after watching Mary Lou Retton in 1984, I knew I could win a gymnastics gold medal. The little problem of not knowing how to do gymnastics didn't deter me... I knew I could do it, or something else just as amazing. Maybe I need to go find that faith in myself again.

As you can see, I have changed the look of this blog a little. Yes, yes, I can go to a website and cut and paste some free code. I rarely take the time to do anything on this blog (not that this is news to anyone) but last night I was sitting on Josie's bed, motivating her to clean her room. I will spare you the details of why it took her three hours to clean her room, but I will say it would have taken me about 10 minutes. At least she did it on her own and she knows she can do it by herself. So as I sat thinking about all of the others things I needed to be doing, Uncle Rico came to mind and reminded me that I "might as well be doing somethin' while I'm doing nothin'." So here you go. Enjoy. Maybe one day I will actually create my own background . . . maybe.

(Above is the look Josie gave me at least 180 times last night. I'll bet you wish you had been here!)

So, I've decided why I have a problem doing a blog:

1. I have a lot of really good "too busy" reasons. I still manage to weed my flower gardens though, even if I'm sick. So I know I'm not too busy to do the things I love.
2. I know I'm not a great writer, and I'm not sure I have anything to say that is worth reading. I don't want people critiquing me. (I know, I know, the only way to get better at writing is to write, but I prefer my private journal for that, not the world wide web.)

So in lieu of some thought provoking prose, I will share with you a favorite photo:


This picture was taken after Josie's ballet recital, Will is on the right, the Dunn boys are up above. What good boys they were to sit through a "boring" ballet recital. Perhaps more will follow. I have the cutest picture of Rosalie . . .