Strife

"Awe, don't you just love love?"  Name that movie...

A note I found on my bed after realizing that Isaac was MIA.  Never to worry, he reappeared shortly afterward to see if I had gotten the note and to check if Jake was still here, spotted lunch preparations, and decided it wasn't worth it to be homeless. 

I remember running away when I was about 7.  I made myself a sack dinner of pears and saltines and escaped to our neighbor's treehouse in the back woods.  I ate all my food, got creeped by snapping twigs and wind whistling around the fort, and snuck home by dusk (dignity intact because I did not leave a note).  I jumped on the trampoline for a little while, then climbed into my window and went to bed.  Nobody even knew I was gone.  Oh well.

Guatever!

Nothing says bratty disrespect more than ...

 

We took a trip to Mesoamerica with my older brother Jeff, his wife Poppy and their daughter Madison, as they went to pick up their sister missionary at the end of her mission in Guatemala.  Anna, Jacob and I had little idea what adventures were waiting for us . . . and Go Cougs.

Our first night was spent at the temple visitor housing in Guatemala City.  We were told not to walk on any floors with bare feet.  Guatever.  Somehow we made it without any worms... that I know of...at least not yet.  Not the first Temple to be dedicated in Guatemala City (2 Nephi 5:16).

Anna, always the charmer, had these little wood-wittlers eating out of her hand, or was it the other way around?  For 10 quetzales (~$1.25) each she made quick friends with them, and my brother Jeff took and developed instant pictures for them.  They were delighted with the technology and with their pictures.  Anna and Jake played a game of soccer with them and one boy even gave her a free wood key-chain at the end because he said she was his friend.  What a heart-breaker.

Tikal is one of the most well-known and spectacular of the Mayan ruins in Mesoamerica.  Deep in the jungle we climbed temples hundreds of feet high, thousands of years old and were awestruck at their architectual and astrological knowledge and ability. It would have been cool enough just to have seen the angry howler monkeys scream at each other, colorful toucans fly overhead and crocodiles swim just feet away.  At one point directly between two temples in the main plaza a hand clap would produce an echo that sounded just like the call of a Quetzal bird (a revered animal to them back then and today).  How did they do that?

 The flintstones had nothing on these folks.  Here the
Allen family is enjoying a couch in an aristocratic home. Yabadabadoo!

Some fruit slushies hit the spot after a day in the jungle.

Anna accentuating her very fine facial features outside because of the better lighting.  She thinks she needs makeup: Guatever. 

I still don't understand how this works better than slinging something over your back, but it has worked for these folks for centuries, so Guat.... just kidding.  Pretty impressive.

What's not to love about walking through a local market: the sights, the smells, and sounds.  Ancient Mayans did not use coinage for currency, rather they had a system of weights whereby they measured to trade things with, much as described in Alma.  Here they still measure their goods even though they now use currency.

The pineapple was oh so tasty...

 ...and Jorge was glad that we enjoyed it so much.

Traditional dress, and yes, there is a little sleeping toddler on her back.

The views were spectacular.  A large part of our travels were on and around mountains.  For the record Jacob did not say "Guatever" once, although he is once en espanol.  Guatever.

One of the "prettiest spots" in Guatemala is a land bridge called Semuc Champey.  Here the raging river dives underground for a couple miles and over the top of it is a bridge of land covered by serene and tropical pools and small falls.  It was beautiful and we enjoyed the water.  Of course there is spiritual symbolism to be seen everywhere: 

Isaiah provides such imagery when referring to the Savior as the peaceful life-giving waters of Shiloah,

versus the raging waters of Assyria (or the world) that bring death and destruction. (Isaiah 8:6-7) If you fall in here, we'll see you in the next life.  The guard has a whistle he blows at you if you get too close...trust me, I know.

This active volcano, Volcan Pacaya, which had errupted and caused considerable damage in May, was a fun climb. Literally skiing down the loose pummice may have been the best part.

Jacob made a friend on a boat ride across Lago Atitlan (thought to be the waters of Mormon by many LDS archeologists).  But I digress.  This traditionally dressed gentleman, Fidel Mendoza Perez, was friendly and commented on what a handsome boy Jacob was, he then petted his fuzzy blonde dome as if to punctuate his compliment.  Jacob, not quite knowing what to do and not knowing very many words to do it with, smiled sweetly and said "Gracias."  Classic.  It still makes me chuckle everytime I think about it.

Jake and I had to get in and swim the Waters of Mormon with the Vulcan de Agua in the background.  Anna was good to watch our stuff and just wade and take pictures.  Easy to see why Alma said that this place was beautiful, made even more so by the beautiful experience that was had here thousands of years ago.

Mi bonita esposa. 

Lots of good teaching, and bonding moments.

 A very cool kid at Lake Atitlan.

Jacob preparing the next human sacrifice on an alter at Iximche--the relatively young ruins of the City of Corn, who were able to keep the Spanish at bay for a few years before being defeated.



Eating with Olga and her familia.  Pass the pepto and the frioles negro, por favor.

or, pollo y tortillas in the home of amigos in Panzos.

Antigua is one of the oldest cities in Mesoamerica.  Here in the ancient community laundry each stone basin drains into the sewer system.   

More old buildings in Antigua.

In Guatemala City there is an archeological site dating back to 600 BC called Kaminal Juyu.  Most of it has been destroyed by modern construction but it is thought to be the City of Nephi.  One very important structure is curiously rectangular instead of a pyramid.  After establishing the City of Nephi, Nephi built a temple after the manner of Solomon, which was rectangular in shape.  The date is right, the shape is right and the location works.  Could it be?  We'd like to think so. 

Our accomodations with a wonderful LDS family in San Lucas.  If anyone is interested in an excellent Book of Mormon tour guide in Guatemala we can't recommend Sergio Navas highly enough.

Finally the trip comes to an end and we get to go home and be reunited with the other kiddos.  Thanks to everyone involved who allowed this trip to happen.  If this bored you to tears because of the lengthy travelog, better here than over the pulpit or....Guatever.

My Better Half

I had to borrow this quote from my sister Rivka.  Partly because it's so beautiful and partly because it describes my thoughts as I was going over our summer's activities, wishing our camera had been working when Michael and I were away celebrating our 12th anniversary.  In lieu of a pictoral recapping of a wonderful and much needed 4 day escape to Sunriver (where we snuggled, rode bikes, swam, stand-up paddle boarded on the Deschutes, read to each other, raced around on jet skiis, and refreshed ourselves and our friendship), here is my second on Kik's post as I reflect on our years of marriage:

"Walter Cotman always spoke of Mary as Elton's "better half." In spite of his sulks and silences, she would not go so far as "better." That she was his half, she had no doubt at all. He needed her. At times she knew with a joyous ache that she completed him, just as she knew with that same joy that she needed him and he completed her. How beautiful a thing it was, she thought, to be a half, to be completed by such another half! When had there ever been such a yearning of halves toward each other, such a longing, even in quarrels, to be whole? And sometimes they would be whole. Their wholeness came upon them as a rush of light, around them and within them, so that she felt they must be shining in the dark."

Wendell Berry, A Jonquil for Mary Penn

Twelve years down, forever to go!

1982

July 1982.  Oh, what a cute little family...all except that chubby, stumpish little thing on the right.  What happened to it?  I love this picture!  I have fond memories of this period of my life living on Brown Deer and sneaking guinea pigs into bed with me at night.  Okay, back to slavery in the 1600s...

By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness -- the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven -- a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves," and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all."

--C.S. Lewis

(Borrowed from my Pop's blog.  Always a good read!)

Gift for Daddy

I came into my room the other evening to find a nice little taped up jar on my nightstand with a note under it saying, "A gift of love for my dad.  Love, Clara."  Below the text was a picture of someone screaming with a spider crawling on their head.  Clara, knowing Michael's intense dislike of anything in the Araneae order, left it there as a little joke.  She extracted a promise from me that I wouldn't let her spider go until Dad saw it.  Okay, fine.

However, the joke was on me when I woke up the next morning staring into an empty jar, fine sticky webs from my nightstand to my pillow and headboard (which got in my hair when I sat up), a nasty little bite on my side that itched and hurt all at once, and the unsettling feeling that I had been snuggling with someone besides my husband during the night....

Clara was sad her pet got away, but delighted that he'd had such a fun and productive night, "Can you believe he did all that while you were sleeping?"

This wasn't the spider Clara caught, thank goodness.  This one was so big and nasty we were all forced to leave the dinner table to watch her eat her dinner.  Yes, that is a full-sized grasshopper she has there!  Michael kept a safe distance.

Problem Solved

We are riddled with bed issues.  Each night is a problem of musical beds.  With so many little people all needing the same size bed, needing to change beds to make room for the next little person, rooms too small to accomodate big beds or too many beds, we were having problems.  We needed to streamline.  So we officially moved Audrey out of the nursery and in with Clara to create a girls' room.

(I just had to add this one because little Audrey is so peaceful.)

Then I got online to find some toddler-size bunkbeds for the little boys.  No such thing, don't know why.  It seems like such a great idea.  So I put together a pattern and made some.  Michael jumped in on his day off and helped with the precision work (you know, having things level and flush, and making joints strong and garbage like that that nobody even cares about!).  We are happy with the outcome.

Below are the little ones, loving their new bed (security rail removed at the moment for playing purposes).  Any good ideas for a finish? 

Isaac likes that it made the whole room smell like a pine forest versus... "you know, what it smelled like before."  And I like that people have a place to lay their sweet little heads with no more griping at night.  What do you think, Madre?  Problem solved!

Hall Bath

Now that our camera is back in action, here are some befores and afters from one of our many summer projects:  The Bathroom.  It is our only full bath.  Sunday mornings get a little crazy in here, but some day we'll have a master bath completed [insert wistful sigh].  Until then, I have been supremely enjoying using this one since it's been done.

 Isaac enjoyed teasing everybody when we took out the little original commode to work on the floor.  He ran up the stairs holding his pants, spotted the toilet in the hallway and exclaimed, "Oh, I need that!"  Then acted like he was going to use it as we all screamed NOOO!

First thing to go:  Carpet (capitalized because it was a living thing).  Second thing to go: weird little towel holder with swiveling prongs that I nearly poked my eye out with several times.  Third thing to go: wallpaper.  Then towel bars, knobs, fixtures and faucets, and on and on.  How satisfying it was to dismantle this bathroom after years of cringing whenever I walked in to it.  I'm especially fond of the floor: industrial cream and charcoal variegated tiles, which are totally indestructable.

Only thing left is to touch up the existing doors and woodwork, but that's nothing.  I found this vintage Colgate & Co. advertisment in an old magazine at an antique store.  It reminds us that "Beauty, of course, begins with cleanliness; and by its gentle, thorough cleansing, Cashmere Bouquet Soap will do as much for beauty as any soap can do.  But along with cleanliness, dainty women appreciate the luxury and delight of fragrance... a fragrance that seems to be the natural perfume of a clean and radiant skin.  This is what Cashmere Bouquet Soap brings to you... a purity and mildness that are unsurpassed... a perfume that is rare and infinitely alluring."

... And besides, he'll want to kiss your hand because of it.