The Miracle Worker

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we watched "The Miracle Worker" last night - a 1962 film about Anne Sullivan, who was the blind tutor to Helen Keller. We decided to watch it after Elder Christofferson's talk on Divine Love came up in our family scripture study sometime last week. He talks about how Anne challenged Helen to become more. 

The story of Helen Keller is something of a parable suggesting how divine love can transform a willing soul. Helen was born in the state of Alabama in the United States in 1880. When just 19 months old, she suffered an undiagnosed illness that left her both deaf and blind. She was extremely intelligent and became frustrated as she tried to understand and make sense of her surroundings. When Helen felt the moving lips of family members and realized that they used their mouths to speak, “she flew into a rage [because] she was unable to join in the conversation.”²⁶ By the time Helen was six, her need to communicate and her frustration grew so intense that her “outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.”²⁷

Helen’s parents hired a teacher for their daughter, a woman named Anne Sullivan. Just as we have in Jesus Christ one who understands our infirmities,²⁸ Anne Sullivan had struggled with her own serious hardships and understood Helen’s infirmities. At age five, Anne had contracted a disease that caused painful scarring of the cornea and left her mostly blind. When Anne was eight, her mother died; her father abandoned her and her younger brother, Jimmie; and they were sent to a “poor house,” where conditions were so deplorable that Jimmie died after only three months. Through her own dogged persistence, Anne gained entry to the Perkins School for the Blind and vision impaired, where she succeeded brilliantly. A surgical operation gave her improved vision so that she was able to read print. When Helen Keller’s father contacted the Perkins School seeking someone to become a teacher for his daughter, Anne Sullivan was selected.²⁹

It was not a pleasant experience at the beginning. Helen “hit, pinched and kicked her teacher and knocked out one of her teeth. [Anne] finally gained control by moving with [Helen] into a small cottage on the Kellers’ property. Through patience and firm consistency, she finally won the child’s heart and trust.”³⁰ Similarly, as we come to trust rather than resist our divine Teacher, He can work with us to enlighten and lift us to a new reality.³¹

To help Helen learn words, Anne would spell the names of familiar objects with her finger on the palm of Helen’s hand. “[Helen] enjoyed this ‘finger play,’ but she didn’t understand until the famous moment when [Anne] spelled ‘w-a-t-e-r’ while pumping water over [Helen’s] hand. [Helen] later wrote:

“‘Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten … and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! … Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house[,] every object … I touched seemed to quiver with life.’”

As Helen Keller grew to adulthood, she became known for her love of language, her skill as a writer, and her eloquence as a public speaker.

In a movie depicting the life of Helen Keller, her parents are portrayed as satisfied with Anne Sullivan’s work once she has domesticated their wild daughter to the extent that Helen will sit politely at dinner, eat normally, and fold her napkin at the end of the meal. But Anne knew Helen was capable of much, much more and that she had significant contributions to make.
Even so, we may be quite content with what we have done in our lives and that we simply are what we are, while our Savior comprehends a glorious potential that we perceive only “through a glass, darkly.”
 Each of us can experience the ecstasy of divine potential unfolding within us, much like the joy Helen Keller felt when words came to life, giving light to her soul and setting it free. Each of us can love and serve God and be empowered to bless our fellowman. “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

Ok, so that was on my brain, and then tonight, going along with the Come Follow Me lesson this week, Corey showed us a video of how fathers are TOTALLY destroyed and made fun of in television and movies and have been for years. 

This was from a video by the Joseph Smith Foundation (see minutes 12:17 - 15:14 to see the clip) ... "In our media and in our books we've become accustomed to this destruction of masculinity". The clip showed was from the 80s or 90s, but I was thinking "Yeah! Not just since the Simpsons and 80s tv shows... this has been going on since Peter Pan!! And that was a innocent little kids cartoon from 1953!!

"Don’t bother changing the channel, cause they’re everywhere... He's lazy, he's immature, he's stupid, he's a marginal-at-best father, his daughter has no respect for him..." Oh I was just eating it up - this is so important!!! Fathers are totally under attack. I mean, I guess we all are, but boy... dads are SO IMPORTANT! Dad's are made for war, and life is a war. I often want to hide inside and I'm so lucky that I get to. I get to stay home in our safe little village while Corey goes out and slays the dragon everyday. For families to be strong, there needs to be strong parents, especially fathers, who hold a firm standard and won't give into pity.  Anyway... the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan is a powerful example of this theme. And yes, I recognize that Anne is a woman AND not even the parent here, she was the teacher, but to me she represented the love, commitment, and determination that our Father in Heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ have. Their deep and long suffering love for us, their commitment to doing whatever it takes to help us, their determination to save us. Anne Sullivan's rant against the mom and dad for their love and pity for Helen is so good (in the Table Manners Scene)

Arthur and Kate explain to Annie that Helen is “accustomed to helping herself from our plates.” Annie retorts, “but I’m not accustomed to it.” Arthur also says "It's the only way we get to have any adult conversation!" (like us giving kids screen time and technology to keep them quiet for OUR benefit, not for theirs!) and he offers to get Annie a fresh plate, but Annie declines "I have a plate, thank you!" as she continues to struggle with Helen. "Ms Sullivan! One plate or another is hardly a matter to struggle with a deprived child about!" But she yells that Helen is “spoiled.” Arthur protests that Annie should have pity, but Anne refuses. I liked this essay on the theme of pity vs. tough love (bold parts are mine):

   Throughout the play, Gibson contrasts the methods Annie Sullivan uses to teach Helen Keller with the methods that Helen’s own parents use. Helen’s parents’ approach can be summed up in one word: pity. Where Annie is rigorous in her efforts to educate Helen, Helen’s parents, Arthur Keller and Kate Keller, choose to baby her, giving her candy to pacify her and refusing to punish her when she misbehaves. While Arthur and Kate’s methods might seem kind, the play shows how their pity for Helen is counterproductive, and winds up standing in the way of her learning how to communicate.

   The fundamental problem with pitying people, the play suggests, is that it deprives people of dignity or respect and assumes that they can’t learn or change—which in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Annie arrives at the Kellers’ house she immediately grasps why nobody else has managed to teach Helen anything: Arthur and Kate feel helpless to change Helen, so they let her do whatever she wants. Because Helen’s parents spoil her terribly, Helen believes it’s okay for her to be wild, rude, and destructive. There are never any consequences for her actions, and therefore she never has any incentive to change her behavior. Indeed, Arthur and Kate spoil Helen because they’re afraid Helen will never change. Even though they keep hiring teachers for Helen, they’re afraid that none of these teachers will ever succeed. And so they conclude that they might as well keep feeding their child candy. As Helen sees it, Arthur and Kate have allowed pity to overwhelm their duties as parents. Because they feel so badly for their child, they don’t have the heart to punish her. In this way, the Kellers’ pity is one of the main things preventing Helen from making any progress: they pity Helen because they’re afraid she’ll never get any better, and as a result she never does.

   The destructive power of pity becomes clearer in the play’s third act, when Annie takes Helen to stay with her in the garden house outside the Keller’s home. Alone with Helen, Annie is able to exercise stricter controls over her pupil. She doesn’t give Helen rewards unless she has earned them, and when Helen misbehaves, she takes away Helen’s food until Helen changes her ways. Soon enough, Helen has learned how to eat with a fork and a napkin. In two weeks, Annie accomplishes more for Helen than Helen’s parents have in years, and the reason for this is clear: Helen’s parents pity Helen and assume she will never learn, while Annie respects Helen and has faith that she can learn.

   Annie’s intense, often severe style of teaching Helen—which might be classified simply as tough love—is the exact opposite of Arthur and Kate’s approach. Superficially, Annie’s approach is aggressive and even cruel, since it involves punishing Helen for actions she doesn’t even know are wrong, sometimes by depriving Helen of her dinner. But beneath the surface, Annie’s toughness is rooted in genuine respect for Helen—tough love, after all, is still love. Annie knows Helen is capable of living a happy, independent life, and she concludes that the only way to help Helen achieve that goal over the years to come is to be stern with her now. The Kellers’ pity for Helen is understandable because it is rooted in love for their child, but Gibson suggests that it is also rooted in a pessimism about Helen’s prospects and abilities. Because Annie believes in Helen’s capacity to learn and improve, she exercises stricter controls and gets impressive results.

Society would tell us it's all about love and "don't you feel sorry for all these victims that have been and that are oppressed"?!? They have it so hard. Well guess what - Anne had it hard too, but she didn't it make her a victim. It made her strong, and she became a miracle teacher, able to teach others how to be strong. Jesus had it harder than any of us, and it made him mighty to save. A baby zebra can't be saved once it's in the lions mouth (2 Ne 6:16) We can't deliver that prey, but even those kind of "end of story" situations can have hope to be delivered by the Mighty One of Jacob (2 Ne 6:17-18). Oh, one more part of the miracle worker that I loved, is when Anne is looking at Helen and wondering how to reach her, and wishing others could see and she wasn't doing it alone. "If one was buried alive, the whole neighborhood would come out to help..." Just googled it - found this post (going to put it all at the end, cause it's all good) but esp this part at the end:

  There is one scene in The Miracle Worker that epitomized the work of Anne Sullivan. Exhausted and exasperated from a day of little gain, Anne turned to a well-worn book for perspective and hope. She read a familiar passage aloud:

  “This—soul—This blind, deaf, mute woman—Can nothing be done to disinter this human soul? The whole neighborhood would rush to save this woman if she were buried alive by the caving in of a pit, and labor with zeal until she were dug out. Now if there were one who had as much patience as zeal, he might waken her to a consciousness of her immortal [soul].”

   Anne Sullivan insisted that you can’t stop digging. The child inside is dignified and worth saving. It might be painful and it might require great sacrifice. But you dig anyway.  

  Because that’s what you do.

  Sounds a lot like God.

I'm grateful to be a mother. I get to labor with zeal with God for the immortal souls around me - working out my salvation and the salvation of my family. It's the best job ever, and I'm so grateful for an AMAZING FATHER who works hard (NOT lazy), is so smart (not stupid!) so experienced and patient (NOT immature) and over the top awesome "I'm the luckiest woman that he's mine" - I love and respect Corey, he's the best. And I love my Father in Heaven. He's the true miracle worker in all of our lives. 

We watched it on youtube for free (with ads) via that link. Btw, I was totally amazed with the actress Patty Duke, wow. And Anne Bancroft who portrayed Anne Sullivan. Anne Sullivan was willing to put up with getting her tooth knocked out - God's long suffering patience with us (except for when he drops us on our butts!)

___________________________

God and Anne Sullivan: What I Learned from Re-Watching “The Miracle Worker” 

by Dr. Tod Worner, 3 April 2018

It had been years since I had seen it.

And it was even better than I remembered.

The Miracle Worker is a play written by William Gibson in 1957 and made into an Academy Award winning film in 1962. Culled from Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, the play tells of the fierce, harrowing first encounters between the feral blind and deaf child and the tenacious, indomitable teacher, Anne Sullivan. Set in 1880s Alabama, Anne Sullivan found herself wrestling (physically and emotionally) not only with an overindulged, ignorant child, but also with a family broken by abject helplessness and unbridled pity.

At first, Anne kept her misgivings regarding the Keller family’s misguided indulgence to herself. She penned an exasperated letter to a colleague saying: “And, nobody, here has attempted to control [Helen]. The greatest problem I have is how to discipline her without breaking her spirit. But I shall insist on reasonable discipline from the start.”

When Anne dined with the family for the first time, Helen wandered around the table snatching food from each person’s plate with nary an objection from anyone. When Anne, aghast, refused to allow Helen to steal from her plate and grabs her wrists to arrest her behavior, Helen launched into a tantrum. Almost on cue, the family flew into a defensive rage toward their new guest.

Captain Keller: “Miss Sullivan! You would have more understanding of your pupil if you had some pity in you. Now kindly do as I—”

Anne: “Pity? For this tyrant? The whole house turns on her whims, is there anything she wants she doesn’t get? I’ll tell you what I pity, that the sun won’t rise and set for her all her life, and every day you’re telling her it will, what good will your pity do her when you’re under the strawberries, Captain Keller?”

Captain Keller [Outraged]: “Kate, for the love of heaven will you—”

Kate Keller: “Miss Annie, please, I don’t think it serves to lose our—”

Anne: “It does you good, that’s all. It’s less trouble to feel sorry for her than to teach her anything better, isn’t it?”

Captain Keller: “I fail to see where you have taught her anything yet, Miss Sullivan!” 

Anne: “I’ll begin this minute, if you’ll leave the room, Captain Keller!”

The next scene is one of the most extraordinary I have ever seen on film. Anne Sullivan (played by Anne Bancroft) and Helen Keller (played by Patty Duke) find themselves alone in the dining room in a face-off of violent wills. Anne’s effort to get Helen seated in a chair, folding her napkin, and eating her dinner with a spoon results in chairs furiously overturned, spoons being thrown, hair pulled, food spat into one face and a pitcher of water thrown into the other. Exhausting and unsettling, the two angry and defiant figures nearly destroy the room (and each other) in an effort to take (or repel) one bite of food off of a spoon. Emerging from the ravaged room, Helen desperately finds her way to her mother and Anne stands wearily and caked with food.

Kate Keller: “What happened?”

Anne [Exhausted]: “She ate from her own plate. She ate with a spoon. Herself. And folded her napkin.”

Kate [Softly]: “Folded—her napkin?”

Anne: “The room’s a wreck, but her napkin is folded.”

Contrary to the first time I saw The Miracle Worker (in high school), it dawned on me that this play is not an inspiring story of a young disabled girl who finds her voice. Instead, it is an indispensable parable about the human need for structure, order, and discipline. Before we can do anything, we must understand what we cannot do. We must comprehend what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable. And that is damned hard. Although Anne recognized that the Keller family’s pity and indulgence was a misguided manifestation of love, it was in fact devastating. It trapped Helen in an abyss of appetite with no ladders of discipline or ropes of order to climb out. The food would come, but you first must fold your napkin. Your doll awaits you, but you first must spell D-O-L-L. Sacrifice is hard, but necessary. Just consider, no athlete, student, musician, or worker ever willingly sacrificed without a greater end in sight. Neither would a young Helen Keller.

And this is how Anne Sullivan reminded me about God.

Those laws and rules, strictures and standards that God revealed to his people? Even those that seemed harsh and difficult to understand? They were intended to pull us out of the abyss of ourselves, to rescue us from our selfish appetites and animal desires and usher us into the blinding light of God’s love. Laws and rules exist for the sake of reminding us of our dignity, not to assault it. God’s law says, “You can’t do that because you are better than that. You should do this because this is your high calling. It doesn’t always make sense, but it will, trust me, it will.” “Have faith,” says God to a broken creation. “Have faith,” said Anne to a broken child.

There is one scene in The Miracle Worker that epitomized the work of Anne Sullivan. Exhausted and exasperated from a day of little gain, Anne turned to a well-worn book for perspective and hope. She read a familiar passage aloud:

“This—soul—This blind, deaf, mute woman—Can nothing be done to disinter this human soul? The whole neighborhood would rush to save this woman if she were buried alive by the caving in of a pit, and labor with zeal until she were dug out. Now if there were one who had as much patience as zeal, he might waken her to a consciousness of her immortal [soul].”

Anne Sullivan insisted that you can’t stop digging. The child inside is dignified and worth saving. It might be painful and it might require great sacrifice. But you dig anyway.  

Because that’s what you do.

Sounds a lot like God.

Wayne's Sister's Funeral

Wayne's only sister, Anna Marie Turley, passed away a week ago on February 18th. 

Anna Marie Turley
November 20, 1937 - February 18, 2024 

Anna Marie Turley passed away after a short stay in hospice on February 18, 2024. She was the eldest of two children born to Wayne and Helen Wride. Anna Marie is survived by her children Julie Turley, Shelley Turley (John Rothermich), Scott Turley (Sara Swim), Karen Turley, eight grandchildren, and her brother, Wayne Wride. She was preceded in death by her parents, and her beloved husband, Thad Turley. A native of Payson, Utah, Anna Marie moved to Arizona with her husband in 1963, and never left. She loved living in the desert, was an avid reader of Elizabethan history, and a college basketball fan. She loved watching her musical Arizona-based grandchildren perform. A lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she earned an education degree from Brigham Young University, served full-time as a missionary in the Church’s Eastern States Mission, happily served in church callings from visiting teacher to Sunday School librarian, and was an active and cherished member of her local congregation up until her death. Anna Marie married Thad Brady Turley on August 16, 1963, in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple after meeting him at a Brigham Young University singles dance seven weeks prior. The couple moved between Arizona and California where they raised their four children. After her husband’s death, Anna Marie was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. The diagnosis of her disability did much to explain her life’s challenges, and compelled those close to her to interpret her life with more generosity and grace. A viewing prior to the funeral service will be from 5 pm to 6 pm on Sunday, February 25th at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1054 West 2nd Place, Mesa, AZ 85201. The funeral service will commence at 6 pm at the same location. Interment will take place on Monday, February 26th at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona.

Here's a cute picture of Wayne as a toddler with his big sister. 

Mark and Chalane came by here very early this morning (5 am) to pick up Corey, and the three of them drove down to Phoenix Arizona for the funeral tonight. The burial will be tomorrow morning. Anna Marie's husband, Thad, served in the armed forces and was buried in a veterans cemetery, and it is not open on the weekend, so they had to wait for Monday for her to be buried there with him. Wayne, Nancy, and Anna Marie's daughter, Karen, who lives here in SL, all flew down together. Selfie at the funeral -

I met Anna Marie a few times, but it's been a while. Joseph was the last one in our family to see her. 

He went and visited the her when he was an FSY counselor in Arizona this past summer. Joseph went by and had dinner with her and her son Scott and his family at their home in Tempe - Jun11, 2023

Pictured here, Corey's cousin Scott, his wife Sara, their kids and Anna Marie.

We are glad that Corey was able to go down to be with family and support Wayne. They got there at 3, cleaned up in Wayne and Nancy's hotel room, went to the funeral, and then started the drive home right after the funeral, so they are on the road now. Mark had to get back for work at 10. I think they'll be here around 6:30 am. Doesn't sound any fun to sleep in a car or to drive in the dark. And a 10 hour drive is nothing compared to a drive to Dallas for the eclipse, which I have been talking about doing... Perhaps I have not thought that through! That's coming up in just over a month. We'll see. Things were good here. The house was super quiet today. It was a beautiful warm day (58 degrees!) and the little kids were playing outside while the teenagers slept most of the afternoon. We watched "The Miracle Worker" tonight, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan, and wow, so powerful! I watched it as a kid, but didn't catch most of it. I was so inspired, I'll talk about that tomorrow. We're probably going to have to watch it again next Sunday so Corey can see it too (and Abi missed most of it too. Lily Sophi and Natalie and I all loved it!). It brings up great topics of discussion on love, pity, enabling or authoritative parenting/teaching, lots of good stuff. Helen was so blessed to have a teacher with such vision and long suffering patience! (...and we have one too, in Christ! <3)

School Stuff

I drove the high school kids to school today early for a morning side devotional. Brandon Doman was the speaker. He was the quarterback at Skyline back in the day when Corey and I were there. Brandon was a junior when Corey and I were both seniors. I dropped the kids off at the church across from Wasatch, where Corey and I used to go for seminary waaaay back in 9th grade, 1990-91! After I dropped them off, I went toward the back to turn around, and passed the little spot of grass where we had an end of year party. One quick story about that spot of grass... (My kids know this story, but I don't know that I've ever documented it here, but it was a core memory for me). SO, we were studying the Book of Mormon, I remember, because we had to report each day if we had read, AND if we read every day, we could attend the party at the end of the year for everyone who read 100%. Maybe it was like 90-95%, I don't remember that part, but I DO remember that I often said I had read, with the intention of catching up, or reading later, or just feeling pressure to fib a little bit so that I could go to the party, cause I REALLY wanted to go to the party and be there with Corey! And other kids were probably lying too (nice justification there, tiff...) (Oh, and also REALLY NICE JOB to younger me of the past that I was 1) LYING (cue 9th commandment?) 2) in a SEMINARY CLASS (where I am learning about God and hopefully following him better as a result????) about 3) READING THE BOOK OF MORMON?!?!?! A book that is helping me understand and keep the commandments better and follow Christ better?? Like really?? Nothing here pricking my conscience yet???) Nope, nope, shut that all out - Pressure was on and the Party is of utmost importance... I'll learn about keeping those commandments and following God eventually, maybe next year for sure! Spring comes, warmer weather is here, the school year is ending and the end of the year party comes. One by one, our names are read to say we have been successful and can go outside to the party! Just about everyone "earned" it. The kids that didn't were going to stay inside and have a regular seminary lesson. AND GUESS WHO stayed in the class room. Just TWO PEOPLE: some goth looking girl (judgy a little bit, tiff?) and... Corey. And I was kicking myself the entire time, feeling guilty that I lied, and mad at myself that my lying kept me from what I had really been looking forward to, which was spending time with Corey. Lesson learned. Well, mostly learned? I did try to stop cheating and lying with seminary stuff, but I struggled quite a bit with other school stuff through high school into college. There are two other core memory stories that I shall try to share later someday (AP History test at Skyline, and Spanish History test at BYU after we were married. If I write those up sometime, I'll try to remember to come back and put the links to them). Anyway, all those thoughts were in my head as I dropped the high school kids off. Lily headed in, and I told her to pause so I could take a photo of her shoes. 

She was wearing two different shoes. This was not entirely by choice, but mostly it was. Her left converse shoe was missing, and she only has this one beat up pair of shoes to wear to school (doesn't want another pair, but I might put my force a new pair upon her soon). She asked Abi if she could wear her adidas, Abi said "sure, but I can't find the other one..." But lucky Lily - her missing converse was a left and the missing adidas was a right! That means Lily now had a pair of shoes to wear. Lily chose to wear non-matching shoes over any of MY matching shoes. How rude. I guess I don't have good style. "They're just not my type..." As she came out to the car with her mismatched shoes, she happily said "This was on my bucket list anyway!) So Abi, Lily, Stein and Eli all had me laughing on the drive to school. Abi was playing love songs. Lily likes Fictional and agrees that all the perfect boys are only in fictional novels (that were probably all authored by women...) "Don't Sweat the Technique" was the last song I played. I've had that on repeat lately when I go climbing. 

Abi loves "Lost in the Woods" and was only semi-joking as she said how it makes her so emotional! And "I Love You Too Much" too - it was funny. Stein and Eli were bantering with the girls. Eli had to ride the middle seat today. It was Lily in the middle, but then Stein couldn't open our broken door, so he went around and then Eli had to scoot and take the middle. Oh the shame! Yeah, they are all basically joking and laughing the whole ride to school. It's fun to listen to. They are good kids. 

Peter is feeling better. It was good to see him back at is regular play place and busy making lego sets. 

He even went to play at Lucy's house this afternoon, yay! Friends! A few BeReals from the college kids - Joseph in his blue shirt, blue jacket, blue jeans, with his blue car. BLUE. 

Mel at work at the Sky Room. 

Aaaand guess who got 100% on his spelling test today!!! Owen earned a lego set! 

AMAZING! And we're going to study spelling words every day now, right?? And get 100% every week, RIGHT?? You can do this! You are smart! It just takes practice. He was really excited to tell me that he got 100% after school. Like will not happen with Peter and the lego set he got for eating his pb&j, you will NOT be earning a lego set each week for your good spelling test score. I know you can do it, and I'm expecting it now! A job well done is it's own reward.

Corey and I are going to go see the next 3 episodes for date night tonight. Should be fun. 

It Works

We've been talking about goals around here. I've been doing good with stepping up my reading and some of my good habits. I've been pretty consistent with exercise for the past 12 years. I'd like to be more consistent with not eating to escape my uncomfortable emotions when I feel restless or stressed. I've been doing pretty good with reading, there's just too much to read though, and I keep hopping from book to book, depending on which one I can find at the moment (since I move my books from my room to the car or to the table and then can't find the one I was just reading, so I have to pick a different one, so I'm in like 10 and not finishing any of them... So I need to also get more organized and clean up around here. I haven't been caring about the mess that much lately. I'll blame it on the winter blues. Hopefully it will return in spring as warmer days of sunshine return. One thing I did try to do today was to help Owen with his homework. And I was successful! 

So Owen earned a party with friends this past weekend for doing an AMAZING job with his checklist. He was the first kid to finish! I appreciated him playing along. I updated the checklist for February and March, cause there is one area in his life that is lacking... reading and spelling. This was evidence by very poor spelling test scores that I saw in his folder last night - 3 out of 15. Ugh. I don't do a good job checking his folder, and he doesn't do a good job showing me his folder, so it's a loose-loose. I like never see his spelling words and never have helped him practice them. So last night, we sat down, and it wasn't an assignment and his teacher didn't say anything about it, but I had him write all the words he missed three times. As we were starting that though, after the first few words, we had to stop, had to tell him HOW TO HOLD A PENCIL (I remember getting HOUNDED on that in 2nd grade.... I can't believe he is able to get away with his incorrect hold!) and had to practice writing out each letter, where it starts, a j starts in the middle then down with the candycane and then the dot) which way the circle goes around on b's, d's, p's, & q's, and do lower case d not an uppercase D, and some technical things like that. OK - after 10 minutes of practicing each letter, then doing a row of the ones he got wrong, we were ready. Back to the spelling words. He did each words each 3 times, and I could tell he was concentrating cause he was sticking out his tongue, it was cute. I had him take both his Alphabet paper and his corrected spelling words to school to show his teacher today. He got home, I asked him if he showed, her, he said yes, and then I opened his folder and found TWO MORE spelling tests, 4/15...

...and 2/15, doh... 

And his poor teacher didn't write the correct words for him on the 2/15 one... She's probably like "I don't have time to write out ALL the words for this kid every week... doesn't his mother help him!?!?" I had no clue where the original list was, so we had to try and decipher this 3rd graders poor handwriting. Owen's sisters tried to help me. Owen wasn't self conscious or beating himself up over his poor performances, so that's good? We never did figure out what #11 was. Natalie said "I don't think that would be a spelling word..." Did he put "succeed" twice? It was like a game trying to figure out the word, and it was a fun game. Even Owen had no clue what he wrote for most of these. His small g's weren't under the line, so they looked like backward e's, all his Ds are uppercase, and his r's could be v's and his u's and n's looked the same too... any idea on some of these? We did the best we could, I didn't have him redo these ones, but I did decide to text his teacher and ask what the spelling words were going to be for his test TOMORROW. She replied right away (with an image of the paper that was once again misplaced at our home): eagle, grown, clown, bread, reach, cried, owl, crow tough, snow, crew, young, screw, spread, tough. "Tough" was there twice, so he'll probably have one mystery word that we won't have practiced, but I'm hopeful. We practiced them all before he went to trumpet, and he wrote them very carefully and correctly. We reviewed them orally in the car on the drive to his trumpet lesson, and we had a practice test when we got home. He only got one wrong! He spelled eagle "eagel" which I think is a totally understandable mistake. 13/14. AMAZING job. I told him that if he gets 100% tomorrow, I will give him a lego set (the kids are a little jealous with how much Peter has been able to cash in on toys this week cause of his croup...) Yes, Owen, you can have the Boba Fett lego set if you get 100%! We're going to review the words again in the morning. He's got this! I will try to be a better mother and teacher of my children. I gotta help them learn to write properly, spell correctly, and how to hold their pencils! It's important! Going to help the kids currently in school and the ones coming up the pipeline. That's you in the fall, Pete! 

Don't get too comfortable. Cute K tuckered out. After a good evening of helping kids with homework, taking O to his lesson, etc, I left for the temple and Natalie woke her up after I left.

I'm grateful my kids are so helpful to me, I will work to be more helpful to them as they learn. Putting it on my checklist. Setting goals and keeping ourselves accountable works. I'm glad we're all here to help each other. 

Ethan and Corey are 10 days into their Nazarite Vow challenge with each other. Every day they start a timer when they start their study of the Book of Mormon, and then send each other a screen shot of their time. Yesterday they reported to each other of what a great day it had been. One of Ethan's goals is daily temple attendance (wow!) and even on Monday, when temples are closed, he just walked on the temple grounds. 

Each day he does something: sealings, initatories, a session, baptisms, repeat. Corey said that he, too, can tell that he is able to better hear the quiet promptings of the Holy Ghost when he's firing on all his spiritual cylinders. Today he had a question of where to find some lead aprons for an x-ray test he's doing tomorrow in Logan, and he followed a prompting to go to the store, and on the way there, he passed by a friend's house who is a dentist, and he then reached out to him to ask if he had some lead aprons Corey could borrow, and he did! As he shared with the kids tonight how good things are going for him and Ethan, Corey told them "I've never seen commitment to God and his gospel NOT work in improving people's lives." Then explained that the greatest variable is whether we really are drawing closer to God, or if we just think we're doing everything when we're actually not giving 100%. Two years ago, when Corey saw a note from 6 months prior that told him he was pre-diabetic, he was shocked cause he felt like he was a healthy person. "Surely you're not talking about me! True, I can't tell you the last time I exercised in the past 5-10 years... but I consider myself healthy!" Just cause we see ourselves as healthy or righteous doesn't mean that we're doing everything we should be doing, or that there's not room for improvement. Ethan said, after the first few days of the Nazarite Vow, he was surprised to realize he actually had NOT been doing that great in offering earnest prayers, reading his scriptures, or attending the temple. Keeping score on ourselves helps. When Ethan's friend Truman heard of Eth's temple attendance commitment, he was amazed... "How do you find the time?!" Ethan replied "Well, you watched that youtube movie yesterday for over an hour..." Ethan has cut out time killers, like all social media (that's one of his vow goals), and when you do that, it's amazing to find how much time those things suck away from your day. So, good job Ethan and Corey! They are really striving to follow God, and that's set a good example for all of us to work harder to follow, too. 

Feeling Better

Peter has had croup since Saturday, but I am happy to report that he is feeling much better today. We are very grateful. He actually walked downstairs on his own early this morning at 6 am! And he ate some food! As much as his shrunken stomach could handle. Then he went upstairs, said "I'm full..." and took a short nap. He came downstairs AGAIN at lunch time!

We've tried to keep Katharine away from him over the past 4 days... I hope he's not still contagious, cause after his nap, they were briefly sitting together in the chair in our room. Katharine woke up super early this morning, but I had to take carpool so I left her with Sophi and Natalie. When I came back from carpool and climbing, she was asleep in her bed, aww...

We're really hoping she does not get what Peter got. Yesterday he was laying on the floor like this sleeping pretty much all day with a temperature that was fluctuating between 100.4 - 101.7.

He would open his eyes now and then and we'd offer him fruit snacks, orange slices, anything... but he usually said "No thanks..." I read online that it's good to just let them sleep - it's just their body fighting the infection. But he hardly ate anything yesterday, and he's already a pretty skinny kid... He didn't have much to go on... On Sunday, when he was absent from our family feast, some of the kids expressed that Peter must be feeling sad for missing out on the fun. Joseph and Ethan quickly responded "I bet he's LOVING it! Watching movies all day? Eating popsicles? Free reign on the ipad?" then they wistfully remembered their youth and both said "I loved being sick when I was a kid!" Corey did give him a small lego set on Sunday night to try and get him awake and playing. Aaand I gave him another one today as a reward for eating all his pb&j. Peter asked me if he gets to keep the lego sets when he's not sick anymore. Yes, you can keep them Peter, but I will not be giving you more lego sets in the future just for eating your lunch. We're making a kindness exception at the moment. Another note of good news is that I found Tiny's stuffed animal, known as Tiny's Tiny, that we got at the DI a few weeks ago to replace Tiny until we find him. I can't believe we lost him again. After buying this small replacement, we promptly also lost him.  

I found him today in (drumroll) the boys toy box! Who knew it would be a place where toys should be! All this time I'd been searching in blankets, pillows, and cracks around the boys bunk bed. So I'm glad we found Tiny's Tiny, AND on Monday I also found my large scripture quad that I misplaced sometime in October/November... I hadn't seen it anywhere for months and was confused at how I could lose such a large set of scriptures. On Monday when I was driving home from climbing, in a quiet car, I was thinking about them once again and wondering where in the world they could be... and the only place that I hadn't really looked was in Corey's office. So I got home, walked straight into Corey's office, looked in boxes in the closet, around shelves, in the filing cabinet, and then as I was looking under the desk, where there are several saxophone cases, I noticed another black bag... a little luggage one that looks like ones I use for my carry on during trips... I opened it up, and it's contents looked familiar - the Happiness Makeover book was inside, along with a New Testament Come Follow Me orange book, and I knew I'd found them. I opened the other side of the bag, and there they were. I must have gone to work in Corey's office once, taken my bag in with me, along with my laptop perhaps? And then when I left I only took my laptop and forgot about my bag under the desk. SO - mystery solved! I am so grateful I found these! I had ALL my notes and highlights in here from the whole time I had taught Gospel Doctrine, for the Doctrine and Covenants, Old Testament, and New Testament. I'm so relieved this book isn't lost. I'm not going to lose it again! I often misplace books, cause I'll take them with me in the car on long trips and small errands, in case I get a moment to read, and then they'll slide and go under the chair or who knows what else, they'll go missing from my view and I'll forget where I last had them. I need to probably work out a better system for my hopes of doing some light reading. Anyway, yay. Abi made dinner last night - Make your own tortillas

She always makes it look so pretty and uses so many bowls, but that's ok cause I've been slacking on dishes and I haven't cleaned in the kitchen much lately... not sure what's wrong with me. I am glad the kids usually cover for me since evening isn't my favorite time to make food or eat. Tonight Lily made dinner while I was out on a bike ride. Took the opportunity cause the sky was half clear and it looked nice outside. I just biked up the canyon road. Was 41 degrees, and it got colder and foggy-er as I got further up the canyon. It was wet. Not raining, just went from snow melting. The wet ground wasn't a problem on the slow climb up the canyon, but it did make it hard to see on the fast ride down, when the water and the salt from the snow melt that covered the roads sprayed all over my face from my tires turning quickly around. It gave me lots of dirty freckles!

Note to self for next time: wear glasses if you want to be able to see!

25 Years

Today is our happy anniversary. 25 years of wedded bliss and a crazy amount of kids has been a ton of fun! Joseph let us know that 25 years is a Silver anniversary. So I guess our children should have bought us some silver gifts or something? 50 years is Golden anniversary. I don't know who made up these rules... Anyway, here are a few stats - 

• 32 years since our first date - May 15, 1992
• 29 years since our first kiss
• 25 years of marriage
• 24 years of diapers
• 13 kids - JMEHWALSNODPK, also known as Joseph, Melodie, Ethan, Hyrum, Wesley, Abigail, Lilian, Sophia, Natalie, Owen, Daniel, Peter, Katharine
• 11 houses (Orem basement, BYU green basement, Pink house on 10th east, Wyview, Centreville VA, the Chacara in Barão Geraldo Brazil, Crosswood House, Villareal Costa Rica, Santiago Chile
•  Current corner of heaven, Campinas Brazil, back to Granite home sweet home)
• 10 years of pregnancy 
• 10 moves
• 8 cars (Helen's Oldsmobile, Pathfinder, White Van, Chrysler Van, Hyundai, Fiesta, Odyssey, Pilot)
• 4 countries

Junior Prom 1992

"Forever Young"

So another year down, an eternity to look forward to! We are taking a rain check on our anniversary date. We might try to sneak away this weekend? But Corey might be going to Arizona for his aunts funeral. Perhaps after the wedding? We didn't do anything today because Peter is sick and we didn’t want to leave him to go skiing or anything. 

(And Corey lent out his skis to a friend anyway...) Corey's been working from home in our bedroom, where he has been sitting as a vigilant sentinel over Peter's current health status. Peter's been coughing, watching Mandalorian, taking baths, and eating bread with Nutella. Joseph and Mel were here this morning, Mel did all the dishes from yesterday, for which I gifted her one of the feast's leftover bags of strawberry yogurt covered pretzels. They headed out around noon, Mel went with J in his car. Hyrum is still here and will be borrowing Mel's car to drive up to Rexburg tomorrow. He's taking her car so he can come back down for the wedding in two weeks. I think I'm in denial about the amount of urgency I should be feeling about wedding prep stuff. Last minute panic should be hitting me soon. Hyrum's siblings enjoyed having him (and his phone) around today - 

There they are, wasting time on screens again... None of them have been very productive. For the past few weeks, I've been taking phones away from Lily and Sophi after they get home from school, but when it's a holiday it throws me off cause they had them most of they day until my after school alarm went off. So then I took their phones, and I got a kick out of Sophi's alarm to practice violin...

So yeah, we just hung around here at home today. So what will the next 25 years bring? I'm excited to find out! Here is how we celebrated our love over the past 25 years. 

1999 - Marriage - Honeymoon at the Homestead in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Lion House)

2000 - 1 Year, went Blue Boar Inn in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Roof and the Blue Boar Inn)

2001 - 2 years, went to the Worldmark resort at Wolf Creek in Eden, Ogden Canyon, Utah

2002 - 3 years - Pepperdine Weekend at Malibu, California (Corey was there being recruited for his MBA so we turned it into a trip) I was 8 months pregnant with Ethan.

2003 - 4 years - Wharton Visit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and trip to Washington DC

2004 - 5 years - Homestead in Midway, Utah 

2005 - 6 years - Hotel Monaco at Salt Lake City, Utah (Dinner at the Roof)

2006 - 7 years - JW Marriott and Teotihuacan in Mexico City, Mexico, with baby Wesley in tow

2007 - 8 years, Barao Geraldo Chacara in Campinas, Sao Paulo Brazil. We had just moved to Brazil for our first adventure and Corey spent the day looking for a car with a friend, and I spent it with his friend's wife learning Portuguese. 

2008 - 2010 - undocumented here on the blog, so sad. We were living in Sandy in the Crosswood house at the time... him, I'll have to go break out the scrapbooks to remember what we did.

2011 - 12 years - in Chile, took little Abi to the ER after getting her finger slammed in a door by the wind in our windy apartment.

2012 - 13 years - Skiing and The Roof with baby Sophi

2013 - 14 years - a romantic dinner for 10, went to Park City, kids stayed with Corey's parents, bought red flower framed pictures.

2014 - 15 years - Skiing at Solitude

2015 - 16 years - Dinner at the Garden Restaurant, Night at Grand America, pregnant with Owen

2016 - 17 years, Corey and I took a little early anniversary trip to Hawaii in Jan, found out we're expecting again, Feb we had our anniversary family dinner

2017 - 18 years - I uploaded our wedding video to Youtube, went to San Diego and Tijuana

2018 - 19 years of family pictures, big snow storm on our anniversary

2019 - 20 years - Grand America with baby Peter and night skiing at Brighton. I made a list of 12 kids, 10 moves, 7 cars, 4 countries, and 2500+ blog posts

2020 - 21 years Bed and Breakfast fail, then Hotel Monaco, family breakfast feast, 21 years and a little trivia

2021 - 22 years Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee anniversary Ski Trip turned Family ski trip, Wasatch Broiler for lunch, Tuscany for dinner, family dinner

2022 - 23 years - Skiing at Brighton and dinner at LaCaille, 7th annual Anniversary feast

2023 - 24 years, Night at Wolfcreek, Skiing at Snowbasin, Dinner at Miyazaki, Climbing at Momentum, Illustrated book by Mel and Lily, anniversary feast

2024 - Silver Anniversary! Peter sick, anniversary feast

Family Anniversary Dinner

Today we had our Family Anniversary Feast! It's a tradition that we all enjoy. 

Feasts from previous years: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, missed a few years, 2016, 2015, 2014, and the first year of this tradition in 2013) I ran into Costco for all the food yesterday on our way back from Bella's bridal shower in Logan. Then after we got home, I left again to see if I could have any luck thrifting before our party. I was mostly looking for wedding clothes, but I also had our anniversary feast on my mind, so when I saw this full red pant suit at kid to kid, I just had to get it. 

Yes, I think Sophi's outfit will be one of the things that will be remembered from this year. She made an impression when she made her reveal in the red high heels (also a thrift find from last night) with the evening light shining through the windows, she looked like a girl on fire. 

Peter has been sick with croup, so he didn't join us at the table or in the group photo this year. Corey has had Peter quarantined in our bedroom for the past 36 hours. And, since Peter was sick and Corey was with him, the boys didn't leave the house while we prepared the food and decorations like they usually do. That made things a bit less fun, cause they were all hovering and wondering when it was time to eat, and when they'd poke their heads in to check the status of things, they'd sneak a shrimp or take a few grapes or a spoonful of mashed potatoes and I would tell them "NO! Stop eating! Not yet!" but they'd do it again and again. So yeah, note to self, next year, they gotta leave! I think we'll also go for a later time next year. Today was at 4, and the sun was shining, so the candles and white lights didn't have their ambiance affect. But it was still good. Time to finally sit and eat~ Kids gathered round... left to right: Mel, Hyrum, Abi, Sophi, Daniel...

Owen, Daniel, Lily, Ethan, Joseph...

Selfie of Corey and I (he's wearing the bowtie he wore on our first date!)

and just some of our many blessings!

A dollop of whipped cream with some berries for a plate decoration as we sit and visit for a moment - 

Then it was time to feast! The menu this year was similar to last years - 

Salmon, mashed potatoes, beet kale salad, shrimp, apple sparkling cider...

The entrees of the happy couple...

So Peter was upstairs all day, watching veggie tales and playing fruit ninja. Katharine was also asleep as we started...

But she woke up when I was looking around the front room for the remote. I couldn't fin it, but she was sleeping on it, so we found it, and she woke up.

Then we were able to turn on the Love Songs playlist. We didn't do much dancing. I tried to get us going by dancing with Katharine, but no one else joined in. Next year, Corey won't be upstairs with a sick kid, and then he can start asking the girls to dance and then we'll get it going. We did go into the side room to watch our wedding video. 

I need to find a way to upload the reception too, cause it cuts off kind of abruptly without the reception part to end. So instead, as we were watching, right after it ended, the Circle of Life came up, and we all laughed at how quickly the circle of life continues! And then we sat around watching family videos on youtube for the next few hours.

While everyone kept eating treats at the dessert table (pink pretzels, pistachios, choc chip cookies, and lindor chocolates) and then I served up strawberry shortcake in some glasses that I got at the DI last night. Fancy schmancy.

Peter up in our room - he's been playing fruit ninja on the ipad most of the day. 

He is sounding a little better. So tomorrow will be 25 years of wedded bliss for Corey and I. We were going to go skiing together, I thought, but then this afternoon Corey lent his skis out to a friend, so.... maybe we'll go biking in St. George? ha, probably not. Maybe he can just work tomorrow and then we'll take a rain check and go skiing during the week, when it won't be as crowded as I'm sure it will be tomorrow. Life is good and I thank the Lord for our abundant blessings. We have been so richly blessed!