February 11, 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008 5:07:21 AM 

We had our first day of church on the road yesterday.  Things went really well.  The kids had a lot of fun playing around the campground in the morning.  When I asked the kids if they were glad to finally be on the trip Dallin shouted YEAH! THIS IS BETTER THAN DISNEYLAND!  Getting ready was a bit tricky and Lexie lost patience with the kids who don’t quite yet share our vision of how Sunday preparation should go.  There was a little added stress in that I didn’t know exactly where to find a meeting house.  It turned out that we were able to find a meeting house right away and were able to make the 11AM session right on time.

As seen in the top left of the photo the line between a place one might get their jammies dirty and a great place to slide either did not exist or atleast bore little consequence on his decision making process.

I was glad we didn’t have our trailer.  The church parking lot was full enough that it took a bit of time to find a place to park the suburban.  The ward was extremely friendly and I was glad I was able to stay awake through the entire meeting.  The kids did reasonably well in Sacrament meeting and went to their classes just fine.  In Elders quorum the topic of adversity came up and I made the comment of how when I look back at my life it is surprising how little of the adversity I would truly want to remove.  When we can look back and see that in the end we wanted it there it becomes apparent why we have the adversity in the first place.  Of course at the time we are experiencing adversity we don’t want to have anything happen but for the adversity to go away.  That made me think about my neck pain.  I have trouble thinking of anything other than how nice it will be to have the pain go away and have fear that it might not ever go away.   With out my neck pain it is quite possible I would not have been able to gather enough courage to launch on my current venture.  There were of course several factors but gaining the freedom to manage and heal the pain was definitely one of those factors.  Like any other adversity a person experiences right now it is hard to focus on anything other than hope that it will go away.

After church we decided that rather than cram in a trip to the temple visitors center we would postpone the trip and have a relaxing day at camp.  That turned out to be a very good decision.  The kids were able to do a lot more playing.  I got out their bikes and roller blades for them.  The weather was perfect.  I was in shorts and a T-shirt and quite comfortable.  There wasn’t any wind.  We made a hotdog casserole for dinner but left out the hot dogs so that the kids could roast them on the fire (The camp hosts had given us some firewood yesterday).  I tried not to make an absolute pig of myself and was reasonably successful.  I think that I would have eaten twice as much if I wasn’t focusing on my eating.  I was a bit disturbed at how difficult it was to turn the food away and I didn’t really turn that much food away as it was.  I am sure I had more than enough calories for a dinner.  We roasted marshmallows after dinner and once again I found them hard to stop eating but wasn’t so bothered by my trouble stopping eating them that I didn’t enjoy them immensely.

We had intended to take an evening walk to the reservoir but by the time we got started we only had just enough time to take an abbreviated campground loop walk before dark.  The walk was wonderful.  Ty is getting very good on his roller blades.  Dallin road his bike.  Natalyn alternated between the stroller and her roller blades.  Davey sat comfortably in the stroller and didn’t say anything but didn’t fall asleep either.  Oh I take that back.  He was excited at one point to see a rabbit.  After the walk Lexie gave the kids a bath while I helped them brush their teeth.  As we hoped they were well ready for bed.  I definitely was.  As I hoped I was able to get a more reasonable nights sleep.  I slept straigt for eight hours but because I fell asleep at 8PM I naturally woke at 4AM.  I laid in bed for about an hour sort of fuzzy headed before I decided I would get my journal and start writing.  I think I will take a nap sometime today with hopes that I will be able to stay up until 10PM to be able to sleep until 6AM. 

After finishing writing in my journal yesterday I went out side for a walk around the campground.  I was pleased to find that with just my running suit I was able to stay comfortable while walking.  When I started walking I could barely see enough to make out where the road was.  After a lap or two I got a nice silhouette of the sky line.  After a while more some I was able to see some of the colors.  Finally on the last lap I did I was able to see where the Sand Hollow reservoir was, right beside us!  Having come in at night we had not know the location of the reservoir.

The experience made me think of how revelation works.  There are several things right in front of us that we just can’t see because for some reason or other we lack the light or lack the knowledge of how to process the information in front of us.