family time

My father dwelt in a tent.

I recently completed and restarted my study of the Book of Mormon. Sometimes it feels a little like Groundhog Day, as if there is little possibility I could still glean new insight or wisdom, considering that I am reading the exact same book for the umpteenth time.

And yet, heeding the prophet’s call to study it again and again, I turned right back around to 1 Nephi and started reading.

When I was a teenager and someone would ask me which scripture verse was my favorite, if I was in a snarky mood, I’d respond with “And my father dwelt in a tent.” I was kidding, of course, but as I have matured and gained insight, I’ve started to wonder at why Nephi made mention of this fact not just once, but several times in his record.

Specifically, he notes on three separate occasions: “Now all these things were said and done as my father dwelt in a tent in the valley of Lemuel.”

With a limited amount of space on which to write, and the fact that it was labor-intensive, why did Nephi repeat himself over such a seemingly trivial thing? Well, for starters, he’s simply giving a point of reference, so we know when and where certain events occurred.

I’m sure the scholars could write an entire book about it, but I’ll just add my humble musings on the matter. Take a look at the stories that precede Nephi’s references to their tent-dwelling in 1 Nephi 9, 1 Nephi 10, and 1 Nephi 16.

Each of these chapters contains a vision or prophecy. An occasion where the heavens were opened and Lehi (or Nephi, as the case may be) received revelation from God. Is it any coincidence that such revelations came as they “dwelt in a tent”? I think not.

Lehi was a very wealthy man in Jerusalem. Surely the demands of a large family and estate overwhelmed him and his wife Sariah at times. They lived there prior to Babylonian captivity, when Jerusalem’s inhabitants were ripening in iniquity.

Their means probably put them in social circles where there was pressure to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. Maybe Sariah shuttled her children to and from various activities and a frenzied pace became the norm. Perhaps she worried about her kids’ friends and the influence that a privileged life was having on their commitment to the important things in life.

It’s possible that family time was slipping away from them and that a study of the word of God took a back seat to any number of activities that pulled them in different directions. (I don’t pretend to know what those are, but I do know that a life of entertainment and hobby is not uncommon among families whose finances are secure. Surely, that applied anciently, as well.)

In any case, Lehi and Sariah and their family left it all behind to “dwell in a tent” in the wilderness. Family time was the only time now. Social engagements canceled for good. Hobbies? Who has time for those when you have to find your own food?

In this simplified existence, I’m sure that quiet time with God became more prevalent, not to mention, necessary. Removing all distraction was a gift to Lehi and his family, as they learned to navigate life with the bare minimum, not knowing where they should go or what they should do.

I can’t help but see some parallels between this experience and the 2020 pandemic. Keeping up with a family of seven before COVID hit our country was utterly exhausting. I lived life in maintenance mode, moving from one event/project to the next.

Sure, we studied the gospel regularly in our home, but sometimes only half-heartedly or in a rush to wrap it up to get kids here or there or because they had homework to complete. Half the time we were missing at least one family member.

My personal quiet time of reflection came at a great cost as I had to wake ridiculously early to fit in any sort of scripture study. I fell asleep often because my body couldn’t keep up with the pace of family life.

As the pandemic hit, we figuratively left behind Jerusalem with only the necessary provisions (toilet paper included). Our lifestyle instantly simplified, we found joy in our family relationships, in simple pleasures, in studying the gospel with greater purpose.

Without all the distraction, I have found I am more in tune with my children’s needs. I have more energy to read up on how to navigate the troubles they experience, and more time to commune with the One who has all the answers.

Aside from a few camping trips we took this summer, we have not left everything behind to dwell in a tent. But, by stripping away much of our pre-pandemic baggage, we’ve discovered a closeness to God and one another that I dare say took a back seat for far too long.

Ordered to stay-at-home. Oh, can I?

Just over three weeks ago was a typical Thursday. I’d attended an after-school volleyball game (Rachel’s first). I dropped Eve off at soccer practice then headed straight to drop Rachel off at hers. That bought me two hours to drop off donations at the local thrift store and make my weekly grocery trip to Winco.

COVID-19 had been marching its way slowly across the country for over a month, beginning with Washington (with whom we share a border). Idaho was one of the last holdouts, so I wasn’t concerned. And frankly, though I’d heard about people hoarding toilet paper, I’d had no issues securing what I needed in the previous few weeks.

But Winco that night was a disaster. Still well-stocked. But completely unprepared for the crowd that descended at the exact same time I did. Holy cow. I waited in line for over 45 minutes to check out, making me 10 minutes late to pick up Rachel from practice. (Tim picked up Eve, since her practice was closer to his work).

While waiting in line I discovered that our church (a global organization) had canceled all Sunday meetings until further notice. Huge deal. Dominoes from there on out. Soccer game canceled. Then all games/practices for the next two weeks. After that-after-school activities/sports canceled. Not long after that – school was canceled.

Suddenly my schedule was completely clear. No running kids to extracurriculars. No art lessons in the near future. No church obligations to fulfill. No waking up at 5:30 to make breakfast before Lily leaves for seminary. No Joy School lessons, no teaching piano, no drivers ed.

Granted, I actually enjoy most of the things I do as a stay-at-home mom. But the term stay-at-home has sort of become a misnomer. And I won’t lie when I say that parenting five kids and all that entails occasionally leads to serious burnout.

It turns out that canceling everything is all I’ve ever wanted.

It means that family dinner happens every single night now. It means my gas tank has been sitting on full for longer than 5 days straight. It means my to-do list is shrinking instead of growing longer under a cloud of obligations I haven’t ever been able to shake. It means my work-from-home husband gets to take a walk with me daily during his lunch break. It means family movie night is every night. And so much more.

So here are a few things I’ve caught on camera the past two weeks:

Home church – complete with Jack giving his first on-camera talk and a few families (including ours) providing singing time for our ward family.

Tim making a Toney family special for Pi Day.

Green pancakes for St. Patty’s Day.

Planting our spring garden.

Sunday outing along the Boise River. Lots of rock-skipping (or, in Jack’s case, throwing).

Breaking in the fire pit for the season.

Pinterest-fail donuts for Anna’s birthday breakfast. (They were tasty – but the hack I’d secured to compensate for the lack of a donut pan misfired, in a major way.)

Hours of fun playing with rice.

Brand new throw pillows for the couches (I bought the fabric last summer so this to-do list item was long overdue).

Matching piano bench re-cover.

A deep appreciation for a full-container of eggs.

Starting on a recipe book of family favorites for my soon-to-be-college-bound daughters. Beginning with banana chocolate chip muffins.

Game night with the fam.

A complete inventory of our food storage. Spring cleaning – 5 boxes destined for Deseret Industries (that will unfortunately languish in our house until it reopens after the pandemic dies down). A freshly cleaned (and painted) pantry.

We even resurrected the butterfly garden we used years ago and ordered some painted lady caterpillars.

Right after they arrived.
They grow a lot in ten days.

Plus a whole lot of reading, binging on TV, video gaming and overall laziness.

I’m living my best life, peeps.

Summer 2019 in a nutshell.

Lest we all forget that vacations are the only noteworthy item of the summer of 2019, here are a few pictures to remind us that the every day can be sort of cool too.

Eve got braces.
Anna worked the snow cone shack with her buddy Kiana.
We might have gone a few times…or fifty.
Probably closer to fifty.
Anna spent almost three and a half weeks at BYU for French Camp. She said she learned more there than in an entire year of French class at our local high school.
We love taking walks along the Boise river. Although, we usually end up throwing rocks more than we walk.
Tim and I look forward to our regular date nights to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. This particular night was a balmy 42 degrees!
Add in some serious playground play at the park.
And plenty of fun at the “beach”.
And that makes for some pretty sweet summer fun.

December recap.

2018 was an “off” year for us. The remodel did not bring out the best in each of us. When December rolled around and we still were parking our cars in the driveway because contractors were using our garage as a makeshift workshop I was at my wits end.

We spent the better part of November and December paying sub-contractors because our general contractor failed to do so. The house was freezing cold as our new contractors wrapped up the finishing touches. We didn’t even put up the Christmas tree until less than a week before Christmas.

As per usual, a couple of strands of white lights had burned out and I couldn’t spare the time to go buy more. We made do with red ones at the top of the tree. When Christmas Eve rolled around and we still hadn’t put ornaments on the tree, we called it good and went without. Needless to say, the holiday spirit was in short supply at our house.

Still, old habits die hard and we managed to whip up goodies for neighbors and friends.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to bake with this cutie around to wash dishes for you?

We attended several choir and band Christmas concerts, piano recitals and even caroled at our local retirement home with Jack’s Joy School class (and their families).

This year, I fulfilled a dream of mine to rope my girls into singing an SSAA arrangement of a Christmas song with me. I selected a jazzy rendition of I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and I have to say, we killed it.

Four parts and everyone nailed it. It’s so fun to have musicians in the family. Now I have to get them to do it year-round.

My parents and two youngest siblings joined us for a few days. We cooked, ate, played games, watched movies, danced and had a marvelous time. Despite our delayed jump into the season, Christmas can’t help but being wonderful.

April iPhone dump.

I realized after reviewing my iPhone pics from April that I need to take more pictures.  Regrettably, some of the best memories from last month have great video footage (ie: every single at-bat that Rachel had during multiple softball games) but am lacking instagram-worthy still shots.

Regardless, this blog is a record, first and foremost, so here’s our April recap in pictures:

 

Breakfast omelette in bed – courtesy of my loving husband.

 

A birthday tradition – roses from Costco.

 

Proof that I finally perfected my homemade french fry recipe. Devoured in mere minutes.

Date Night to the opera – A Streetcar Named Desire. Downright weird music and a total downer of a plot but Tim and I both agreed that it made us think. So there’s that.

Jack enjoying the beautiful spring weather with his very best buddy.

Anna singing with her quartet (and their male counterpart quartet) at a junior high band concert.

More fun outside with friends.

A fun visit from family – and daring antics on everyone’s favorite swing – just two weeks before one of the ropes snapped.  I can’t imagine why…

Anna’s choir trip to Washington.

Rachel competing in the “soccer ball throw” (aka: discus) in the city track meet.

Family night at the park. Jack’s the only one who got his picture taken because it was all hands on deck to keep him from falling off each precipice he insisted on scaling.

Add to that piano recitals, a voice recital, softball games galore, several art lessons, a belated birthday party for Anna (it’s my “off” year for party planning so she did the planning and failed to capture any pictures), and prepping our house for a home addition and you’ve got a pretty full month.  Now, on to an even busier May!

Spring breakin’ on the oregon coast.

We kicked off our trip (after driving across the state of Oregon, that is) by stopping at Multnomah Falls.  The upper viewpoint was still closed (presumably due to the wildfire that may have compromised the area last summer) but we made the most of our pit stop.  Tim and Lily gave us away as tourists by carrying umbrellas (it was barely drizzling).  The rest of us survived in our hoodies, in true Oregonian style.

We stayed in Beaverton that night with dear friends (one of whom I have known since the tender age of 12).  Our kids bonded by watching a whole season of some Amazon Prime kids show so that we could talk late into the night.  Good friends are priceless.  The next day we headed to the coast.  This was our view as we drove through the coastal mountain range.  It doesn’t exactly scream “headed to the beach”.  Haha.

Knowing that March weather in Oregon is rain, rain and more rain, I had the foresight to book a yurt at a state park.  To our surprise, we encountered plenty of tent campers.  Those Oregonians sure are hardy.  We explored the area and found a rocky beach at high tide, giant mushrooms and trees you could walk through.

We showered up that night, anticipating church in the morning and promptly discovered that Rachel’s fear of spiders is an actual phobia.  Like, I was talking her off a ledge the whole time she showered in what she imagined was a spider infested shower stall (there might have been one or two).  It was nuts.  She survived, and was appeased by my promise that she wouldn’t have to shower again until we arrived at our friends house in Vancouver, Washington.  Four days later.

We ran into some people from our home stake in Boise at church on Sunday(so weird), then headed out to hit up a few sights (since it promised to be a sunny day).  Oceanside was beautiful.  Giant sandy beach with haystack rocks in the distance and ample tide pools on the north side of the beach (you have to go through a tunnel to get there).  We all were in awe of the beauty and basked in the rejuvenation the ocean offered.

On to Cape Meares – there’s a fun little lighthouse at the end of a very short walk here.  The views are stunning and we caught several whales migrating north less than a half mile offshore.  It was mesmerizing.

Monday presented a few challenges, so to speak.  Our plans to go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium were thwarted when one of the wheel bearings on our car broke and we had to be towed to Lincoln City for repairs.  We spent a few hours in the repair shop, munching on popcorn and sipping soda(it’s the little things in life) before finding out our car wouldn’t be done until the next day.  We rented a car, drove back to our campsite and combed the beach for shells and agates at low tide.  Eve was thrilled to collect ten sand dollars.

The aquarium visit came the next day – and, judging by the number of visitors, you’d think it was Sea World.  Except without the rides, and orcas, and dolphin shows.  It was a nice aquarium, but honestly, I think our family does better when we stick to spending no money.  Increases the enjoyment factor.

Our trip back up the coast yielded a visit to Devil’s Punchbowl, which we caught at low tide so we hiked right in (would’ve been underwater at high tide), a late lunch at a yummy burger joint, and two gallons of Tillamook ice cream, which we consumed for dinner back at our yurt.

A freezing cold, wet (what else would it be in March in Oregon?) and glorious day on the coast.  We loved every minute.

Our last day, after cooking a pancake breakfast and packing up (I had to get on top of the car to close the car top carrier), we headed north to Cannon Beach.  A few years ago, we spent some time in a vacation rental but the kids barely remembered it.  So we planned for low tide, and spent a couple of hours on the beach building sand castles, bumping a volleyball around and exploring the tide pools at Haystack Rock.  Our last experience there yielded prolific wildlife – tons of sea stars and anemones.  So it was a bit underwhelming to find that most of the sea stars had found greener pastures (too much human interaction, perhaps?).  Still, the kids loved touching the animals and we all enjoyed hearing Jack try to say “anemone”.

Some of my favorite moments of the trip were found in the simple expressions of love we shared as family members – the willingness of the kids to stand out in the rain and hold an umbrella for dad while he cooked dinner, the wonder in their eyes as we soaked in the beauty of the world around us, the gratitude we all felt for a burst of sunshine or a hot shower, and the dorkiness we all exhibited over and over.  And over.

And this:

This sweet scene just made my heart swell with joy.  A little boy with a hand on his big sister’s shoulder.  Staring at the ocean.  Family life is full of these tender moments.  We just need to take the time to first create an environment where they can happen and take the time to notice when they do.