Father's Day

This picture is an oldie, but a goody. It was taken when Merrick was less than six months old and to me it represents foreshadowing of the great dad Jeremy would become.

Since it is Father's Day I just wanted to take a moment to express my love for all the wonderful fathers in my life.

First and foremost, I am grateful for Jeremy. I could not have asked for a better companion and partner. He is such a great dad and example. Sometimes I wish he would not teach Merrick boy things (like how to spit while playing baseball), but mostly he teaches him how to be respectful of me and how to become a great man one day.

I am grateful for my dad and Jeremy's dad. They are such examples of love, service and worthily holding the priesthood.

Lastly, I am thankful for all our grandfathers. Jeremy's grandpas are both still with us. One of my grandfathers has passed on and my grandpa Whyte is critically ill. All of these men, both those still with us and those who have passed on have taught us about faith, hard work, love and sacrifice.

I want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all the men in my life who have taught me, led me, and made me a better person.

The Straw

I sit here waiting for inspiration on what to write about this week and I am at a bit of a loss. Usually I try to keep the blog kind of light, not that I pretend bad things don't happen to us, but I do try to focus on the positive. But at the end of this week, I am struggling to focus on the positive. Everyday brought a new challenge or difficultly (and often more than one) and by the end of the week I was feeling like the camel, waiting for the straw. It wasn't just us either. I has been a really tough week for many people we love.

So now I struggle with what to say about the week. To pretend it was an okay week would be false, on the other hand, most of what happened is too close to my heart to talk about in this type of forum.

What I can say is this week I lost my job. My boss has been out of money for a long time and has just been limping along, paying me out of her pocket just to keep us going. This week she realized she can't even do that anymore. Luckily Jeremy has a summer job right now so we will be okay while I figure out what is next, but it was still a really big blow.

Like I said, the rest I won't talk about right now, but it has definitely driven us to our knees. If you are wondering what you can do to help, if you have any leads on a job I would gladly take them and other than that, we could always use prayers. I know I will be praying hard for a better week next week.

Our New Life

As I mentioned last week, this week Jeremy started summer school. Not only did he start classes, but he also increased his work hours to 35 hours per week. He leaves the house at 7:30 am and gets home sometime between 9:30 and 10 pm. This has made for some very longs days with many more long days to come.

Despite this crazy schedule, we have found a way to make some time to spend as a family. Our crazy days go as follows: Jeremy works until 3:30 and then studies until just before 5:30. Meanwhile I make dinner and pack it up to go and at 5:30 Merrick and I meet Jeremy at the school for dinner. We eat dinner and then take a walk through the forest to the school's baseball fields. We play a little baseball as a family until 7. After baseball we walk back to the car and get Merrick dressed in his pajamas. At 7:15 Merrick and I head home to make Merrick's 7:30 bedtime and Jeremy heads into school to make his 7:30 class.









When you see it written out it seems really crazy, but I just feel blessed that we are able to do it. Had Jeremy gone to a different school, had we lived farther from the school, or had Jeremy's work been farther from school, this would not be possible. When we were deciding which school Jeremy should go to, we felt prompted that if he went to Lewis and Clark, we would be able to spend the most time together as a family and I feel really grateful that despite the craziness, we have this precious time together.

A Day at the Zoo

I am embarrassed to admit that despite all the fun adventures we have had as a family since Merrick was born, we had never taken Merrick to the zoo. Yesterday was memorial day and our last day before Jeremy started summer school (and increased his work hours to 35 hrs/week), so we decided it was the perfect day for a family trip to the zoo.

The weather was really nice and Merrick was so good. He walked almost all of the time, but he stayed right by us and was so excited to see each of the animals. The only negative of the day was that it was fairly busy. We had to park in the overflow parking and take a shuttle over. The shuttle was an old school bus and if you ask Merrick he will tell you that riding the bus was his favorite part of the day.

It may have taken us two and a half years to get Merrick to the zoo, but we all had such a blast, I am sure we will be back soon. I got a little carried away taking pictures, but here are my favorites.

Family Helpers

Several weeks ago I overheard a conversation between my sister-in-law, Rachel, and someone at church. Rachel was talking about all the things they had been working on over the weekend and the women said something to the effect of, well it is so nice you have family around to help. I remember Rachel's response because it really struck me. She said "Particularly this family, they are extremely helpful."

I don't know how it happened or how my parent's instilled this idea in all of us, but the bottom line is, if someone needs help, whether big or small, whether convenient or not, you help in any way you can. Most of the time I am very grateful that this is how we "roll", but there are also times when I wonder what I have gotten myself into.

This weekend our "family" project was painting Ben and Becca's entry way and dining room. With three different colors and extremely vaulted ceilings, it was quite the endeavor. At the end of the weekend all I can say is there is nothing quite like spending A LOT of time together to bring out the good, the bad, and the ugly (and let me tell you with all of us in our painting clothes all weekend, there was a lot of ugly). For our purposes tonight, I would like to focus on the positive, so here is a list of things that I love about my family that I was reminded of this weekend,

1) As previously mentioned, if you need help, whether it is with eating a delicious cake or remodeling your whole house, we are there

2) You can count on laughing...a lot

3) You can count on being laughed at...a lot

4) You will be rewarded for your efforts (thanks Ben and Becca for all the yummy food)

5) You can always be yourself...even if that means wearing two layers of clothes and dancing by yourself to the music in the middle of a restaurant (Colvin)

6) You can count on someone to take a picture, put it on the internet, and save it as a weapon for a later date.

The boys

This week marked the first week of consistently good weather around these parts. There is nothing like being out in the warm sunshine to bring out the "boy side" of my boys. We spent the week doing fun things like playing at the park, going to skate parks, and hanging out at a local campground.

I can tell that this is just the start of a fantastic summer.

I Think I Can

Last week I posted all about how stressed we have been. I have been thinking a lot about this stress and how much of it is "self inflicted". Jeremy did not have to go to law school and thereby subject himself to law school finals. I did not have to choose to work for a company headed into the very stressful time of a product launch. So why did we do this? The answer came to me this week like a ton of bricks, but it started long ago, right after we had Merrick.

There is so much pressure that comes with having a baby. In an instant there is a tiny human which you are entirely responsible for. You are responsible for his health and well being, but perhaps even more critical, you are responsible for teaching and molding him into a responsible, productive citizen. I would be lying if I said I hadn't spent LOTS of time wondering if we were doing it right. I want Merrick to be smart, kind, honest, hard working, and successful and it is up to us to teach him to be all these things...talk about stress.

This week I had a small moment with Merrick that led me to believe we may be getting it right. We were at a bounce house and he was climbing a really tall "climbing wall" to slide down a slide on the other side. I was not helping him, but just standing by, watching, to make sure he did not need my help. Right before he started to climb, he stopped and looked at me and said "I know I can do it mom." It was such a simple sentence, but it spoke volumes to me and answered a question that I have had about why we put ourselves in these situations that are hard and cause stress. We do it because we were taught by our parents that we could.

I often tease Jeremy that he is alarmingly self assured, but what a great personally trait to have. He WILL be successful because he believes that he will be. At the end of the day, I am not sure there is much better gift a parent can give their child than a belief in themselves. I want to thank my parents and Jeremy's for instilling this in us and I hope it is a gift that we can continue to give Merrick.