adventures

Lake Powell just might be Dave and my favorite spot. I mean, I don’t know that there’s much better than being cradled in those expansive red cliffs, a big sky full of stars in the evenings, surrounded by people you love. It is so much work to get food and…

This summer my dad took me on a little sail at Bear Lake. He is a sailor, you know. This man is a true renaissance guy if I ever knew one. The wind was flat. So at first there was not much “sailing” going on. Just good talking. We picked…

(Ok, actually now it’s already started! Yikes! But we’re backing up to keep track for a minute…) Welp, just like that, Claire is home from the Netherlands. It may not seem like she’s been gone for long from the casual observer, but we have MISSED this girl of ours! This…

…and some of Canyonlands too! (Canyonlands neighbors Arches and it’s pretty do-able to visit both in a day, which I completely recommend, especially if you want to see MESA ARCH at sunrise, pictured above. Please don’t miss that!) But first a little back story: A few months ago, a couple…

Promoting Resilience in teens Claire had an unintentional lesson in resilience a couple weeks ago, and I want to share it because once again, I keep being taught that so many of the things we try to teach can only be learned if we let go. Covid has hit the…

Isn’t the world amazing? Don’t you think that even when you’re in the grumpiest of moods, being out enveloped in it’s goodness can’t help but make you feel better? I have found that it sure does the trick on transforming a cantankerous teenager. And also her mother. On Saturday Lu…

I have been thinking so much lately about this: What is different about how Dave and I parent our younger kids compared to our deliberation with our older kids? Do we really teach our younger kids like we have taught our older kids? Sure, we’re with them more, and there’s…

…That’s where my missionary is. Sending out lots of prayers for people in Texas! Here are some pictures from her letter last week before things got so much worse…back when they were just in awe of all that ice covering everything: Loved seeing her all cozy in her apartment. But…

Last week these two got a pretty exciting piece of news: Carson got accepted from the wait list to a podiatry school in Florida that he had his hopes on. WOOHOO!!! They had a little less than twenty-four hours to make a pretty gigantic decision. They had been trying to…

When Lucy gets into something, she really gets into something. I’m not sure what got her on her Hamilton kick a couple years ago, but it’s been a long-lasting one. I honestly don’t think there’s been a day that’s gone by where she doesn’t have that soundtrack blasting in her…