St George Trip; Santa Clara Cemetery

On Saturday, we took a quick trip down to St. George to see my nephew, K, be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  By leaving at 5:45, we were able to make it to the 10:00 am event with fifteen minutes to spare--just long enough to dash into the bathrooms and put Sunday clothes on all the kids.

We were so proud and excited to see K get baptized.  K has autism, and a moderately severe form of it.  But the awesome part is how much he is growing and maturing and learning how to communicate.  My brother told me how K was even able to answer all the baptism questions during his interview--albeit in his own way, with my brother (who was present) translating and reforming the questions and answers.  We don't know what is going on in K's head, but it is clear through his actions and (very occasional) words that he understands a lot, even if he can't communicate with the rest of us.

After the baptism, we went back to my brother's house for pizza and treats.  The kids had a ball--my other brother David and his new bride Autumn (yay Autumn!  Haven't written the story of their wedding yet, but I will) had driven down with the three kids, and there was much running around, jumping on the trampoline, playing four-square, and shouting to be had.

I had another task in mind down in Utah's Dixie, so eventually we peeled out kids away and said our good-byes.  We drove out to the Santa Clara Cemetery.  Santa Clara is a small-ish town just northwest of St. George.  (It's actually quite a bit bigger than it used to be, has become a bedroom community, and is nearly connected to St. George now.)

Santa Clara was settled by Jacob Hamblin and a handful of Swiss saints back in 1854.  Among those saints were several branches of my ancestral family tree.  I can only imagine what it was like to go from gorgeous Appenzell Switzerland (at the base of the Alps, dairy country) to dry, dusty, red, treeless Santa Clara.

And yet they truly did work to make the desert blossom as the rose.  The Tobler family (and the Stahelis, and the Kreises, and all the others) stuck it out, and made a beautiful place.  They lived there and were buried in the red sand of the remote cemetery high on a bluff, overlooking the Virgin River.

Before my father died in 2006, we were talking about the gravestones of these family members. He had been taking care of the graves of his grandparents, Ernest and Cecilia Tobler, since his father had become unable due to age.  I told him I would take care of them from then on.

We don't make it down that way as often, since Mema moved up here, but fortunately my brother Samuel got a job as a professor at Dixie State University, and he is keeping a good eye on the graves now.  But since we were down there, I went out, with shovel and garden gloves, to take care of a dead tree right behind the gravestone.

It was a warm spring day on Saturday, but the breeze was cool and clouds kept the sun mostly at bay. The kids roamed around the historic part of the cemetery, playing hide-and-go seek and treasure hunting and tag.   I felt ridiculously proud of myself for removing the dead bush/tree and getting the area ready for a new tree (I've arranged with the sexton of the cemetery for a new tree to be planted--we'll pay for it, but they'll place it, and hopefully keep it alive).  I also dug up the pesky spring weeds, and reset some of the basalt rocks ringing the site.

 Grandpa Ernest and Grandma Cecilia's headstone

The empty circle of rocks to the left is where the old tree was, and the new tree will go.

After I was done--and my kids were done loooooong before me, thank heavens for daddy and a/c in the van with a movie!--I walked over to Ernest's father's grave (my great-great-grandfather Jakob Tobler), and discovered that the previously well-kept site had fallen into some disrepair.  I wonder if whichever cousin or great aunt/uncle had been taking care of it all these years had moved or passed away.  At any rate, I took a few moments and pulled weeds, picked up trash, and reset some rocks.  I need to remember to keep an eye on this one, as well.

Jacob (or Jakob) Tobler headstone, with his four wives (only three at time, though!)

I love the Santa Clara Cemetery.  It is so lonely and austere, and has remained that way even with the new housing development just north.  But it has a remote kind of beauty that feels more appropriate for a cemetery--especially a pioneer one--than a lush green one in the middle of a bustling city.  (Although I will admit that the lush green type has an appeal all of its own.)  The Santa Clara Cemetery is rugged, hard, dusty, and oddly faithful--just like the pioneers buried there.

Mandasaurus and two little Rexes

Today my old college roomie and very dear friend Mandy came over to visit.  She brought along her two little boys--N, who is almost three, and A, who is a gorgeous five month old.  It was so fun to sit (well, chase children) and visit and laugh and swap stories--it's been almost two years since we last got together, and even longer since we had a chance to just talk.

I was so lucky in my college roommates.  Many are still good friends, although I'm in contact with some more than others, and I had the opportunity to room with a best friend four different times.  Kristy and Mandy for the first three years, LaDale for most of the fourth, and Emily for the sixth.  That means I was only without a best friend in my own apartment for 1.5 years--pretty awesome, no matter how you look at it.

Anyway, now that I live in northern Utah County, and Mandy now lives in southern-ish Salt Lake County, we have made plans to get together more often.  Hooray!  I love her dearly, and it will be sooooooo nice to be a part of each other's lives again.

Dinner!!

We live right next to a park, with a soccer/football field nearest our house and the play structure on the other side of the field.  The park abuts the school, with a kindergarten playground (closer) and the "big-kid" playground farther away.  There are basketball courts and four-square courts and hopscotch and even tetherball poles.  (I think we'll buy a tetherball and cord.  I have many fond memories of tetherball, both at home and at school.)

Now that the weather is warming--and hooray for spring, even a fitful, tentative Utah one--my kids are really starting to take advantage of our location.  Even Hebs, at four-and-a-half, is allowed to go out (with Em or Zee) and play at any part of the park/school grounds.  And I love it.  It gets them out of the house, it gets them away from the TV/computer/Xbox, and it tires them out.  Win-win-win.

But I don't love trudging across the fields to gather them in for dinner or bed.  So I'm totally going to buy a dinner bell.  A good, loud one that can be heard across the fields and playgrounds.  I'm so excited.

I'm trying to decide between a handheld one, like this:

Or a mounted one, like this:

Both have pros and cons.  I can control the use of the handheld one better than the mounted one--I just have to make sure I have a good high location for it.  And I can walk to the edge of our property and ring it, to get that much more coverage.

But the mounted one will always be available--I could just walk out onto the porch and ring-ring-ring!  And it won't clutter up my cabinets, and I won't have to remember to put it away.  But the kids could--would--play with it, at least until I yell at them a few times to STOP IT NOW.  And the wind might ring it, as well.

So I don't know.  The handheld one is cheaper, with Prime shipping on top of that.  The mounted one is slightly more expensive, has shipping costs, and extra time for shipping as well.  And I'd actually have to mount it on my pretty stucco.

Decisions, decisions...these are good ones to have.  I can't complain.

Good-bye

Today we finally said good-bye to our sweet little Spanish Fork home.

In December 2004, we arrived with one little 14-month-old toddler.  We left in January 2013 with a nine-year-old, an almost eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old.

I feel totally ridiculous for feeling so broken-hearted about leaving our little brick house.  It is 69 years old, small, awkward, low-ceilinged, oddly wired, and drafty.  It is definitely NOT handicap-friendly.  The windows don't always close properly, and if you drilled into the outer walls upstairs, to hang a curtain rod, say, you discovered that the walls were nothing but brick covered in plaster.  No insulation.

And yet...we lived and loved in that little old house for eight years.  We brought four of our five children home from the hospital there.  We laughed and played and made friends and put down deep roots.

So my heart hurts a little tonight, to say good-bye to my beloved home.

And yet, I know that this is the right choice for us.  We put the house up on the market on a Monday.  By the following Monday, we had three good offers in writing.  Less than six weeks later, we signed the closing paperwork this morning. I am amazed that it all happened that fast.

But I think the Lord wants us here in Lindon.  Our buyers told us their story:  They had been looking for a home for their family since last October.  The wife kept getting an impression to wait until March.  So during the first week of March--the week I listed our house--she impatiently combed through all the listings, and found nothing.  Frustrated, she finally opened up the Craigslist ads and...found our house.  They fell in love with it at first sight.  After they walked through it on that Friday, she called me and asked, "What can I do to make this house mine?"

I'm so glad their bid was the natural (in other words, best) pick, because I just felt like it was Meant To Be.  They seem like such wonderful people, and will love my little house as much as we did, I think.  They will also be a good fit for the neighborhood, with a nine-year-old boy, almost-eight-year-old girl, and five-year-old boy.  :)

I will miss my sweet little house, but I'm glad to leave it in such good hands.  Thanks for being so good to us, Spanish Fork.  We love you!

Good-bye Grand Parade in our front yard

Good-bye Speedy Spaniard race ending at our front door

Good-bye gorgeous park outside my front window

 Good-bye beautiful orange-red bricks

 (Sniff!)

Telephony

I have a total love-hate relationship with the telephone.

I love that I can chat with far-flung (and not so far-flung) friends and family, without anyone else listening in (except J. Edgar Hoover, naturally), and at my convenience.

I love that I can arrange business transactions from Lindon to Salt Lake to St George (and farther) from the comfort of my home.

I hate waiting for return phone calls, because I never know what the home situation will be when the call comes.

 And today the phone would NOT STOP RINGING.

I shouldn't (really, I shouldn't) complain.  Almost every call was someone returning one of my calls, mostly from yesterday.  I tried to get through a huge list of tasks yesterday, but apparently it was still Spring Break for most people, because most of my calls ended with messages to voice mail.

These return calls should not be a problem. (Yay!  People getting back to me, to answer my questions or help me out!)  However.  My 2.5 year old Yum-Yum has decided the phone is her best friend.  Whenever I am on it, she longs to talk.  She ardently desires to talk.  She NEEDS to talk.

This is fine when I am chatting with my sister or mother-in-law, but not so much when I am trying to get a quote for radon mitigation.

When I tell her "No", she reacts in one of two ways:  1) Collapsing on the ground in furious, screaming tears; or 2) Running three steps away, and then collapsing on the ground in furious, screaming tears.

What was that you say?  I should walk away from her, and let her have her temper tantrum alone?  Oh, my Yummy is far too clever for that.  She immediately hops up (still screaming and scolding), and follows me around, latching onto my legs if I am not fast enough to get away.  It's probably an amusing sight, mom running away from angry toddler.  Except, you know, when you're the mom and it's the city offices on the line and you're trying to explain the issue with not knowing exactly where your property ends and the park begins...and no one can hear a thing but Yummy screaming "NO!!!  I WANT A TALK!!!!!"

So.  That was my day today.

I talked to two sisters, one mother-in-law, one realtor, one headstone-cleaning lady, one Santa Clara cemetery official, one Lindon city official, one radon mitigation person, one plumber, one doctor, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I could be wrong about that last one, though.  It's hard to know, given the adorably exasperating little girl screaming in my ear.

Visitors

Bradley's sister Michelle, her husband John, their five children (ranging from almost-eight to seventeen), and Grandma and Grandpa Ross came to visit tonight. It's spring break for the Gillelands, and so they have been hanging out in South Jordan.  John, while up here on business, came and saw the new house right after we moved in, but Michelle and kids hadn't, so we gave them the grand tour.  They brought dinner from their BBQ restaurant--Dickey's BBQ--soooo delicious.  The kids played, the older boys lounged, and the adults chatted.  It was a wonderful evening.

Of course, that meant that before they came, we were  frantically happily cleaning the house, the kids and I.  Such a joyful event that was, with helping hands and singing and...oh, who am I fooling? No one, that's who.  I really need to learn to help my children learn to clean without loosing my temper and yelling. I'm a real charmer during chore time, I tell you what.

It is nice to have a clean house, though!

Generally Speaking

I was looking at old posts on my blog today, and I'm kicking myself for stopping.  Why haven't I blogged in so long?  Part of it was the move, part is because my laptop stopped working, and part is because of the huge backlog of events that I feel like I need to chronicle.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, moving, saying goodbye to my dear Spanish Fork and my dear friends, saying hello to a new school, ward, neighborhood, and city, getting settled, Em's eighth birthday and baptism...yikes!  It feels impossible!

But I don't want to miss out on recording the memories we are going to make in this new stage in our lives.  So I'm going to start up again, and work on the backlog a little at a time and in between normal, day-to-day stuff. 

General Conference this weekend was marvelous!  Saturday morning was especially pleasant.  Bradley and Zee weren't home (Zee spent the night with cousins, and Bradley was at the old house mowing the lawn--PS, we're closing on Tuesday!!!!), Em was still asleep (yes, until noon.  She's eight going on fifteen), and it was just the three littles and me.  They were content to cuddle next to me on the couch, and watch the puzzle I was working on while I listened/watched.  We were peaceful and calm and quiet, an unusual occurrence in my house that should be noted.

We made the children watch the Sunday morning session, and I'm so glad we did.  As an extra incentive for attentive listening, we chose a "candy" word for the session.  Anytime they heard the word "love", they could have a piece of candy.  The younger three could glom on and claim to have "heard" it when someone else pointed it out, but we were a little more strict with the older two.  Don't worry, though, because they got plenty of candy. It was an inspiring scene:  All my children, gathered around the TV, hushing each other and their parents, listening intently.  All for candy, but it's a start.

I always feel a little sad at the end of the last session, because I really do love conference time.  Even watching/reading/listening to the talks after just isn't the same as the first time through.