May 08 Movie

There is a POLL ---->

Our Maryland Ward

I don't have any pictures of church. But I do have one thing to brag about: the DC Temple is now OUR temple!! Not only that, but the temple really isn't in DC. Its in Maryland. Did I just get cooler or what?!


And now, some interesting tidbits about our new ward:

(1) Sacrament meeting is QUIET. If these people aren't busting up, they are dead silent. I swear. I never heard a peep out of the family with 10 kids, but my own two seemed incredibly unruly! Quiet also means that Seara's cheers and claps after hymns and musical numbers are a lot more apparent. And it allows the entire ward to hear Seara thank the deacons who pass her the sacrament. I'm not sure if I should have cracked up or died of embarrassment!

(2) We meet at 1pm - exactly when both Seara and Elijah nap. You can guess how well that went on Sunday. Sadly, this ward is also the only one in the stake that never changes schedules. We will always meet at 1pm. Blast!

(3) There is another Ricks family in the ward. WHAT?! I mean, until I met Sam I didn't even know Ricks was a last name. I always thought Ricks College was the college of some dude name Rick. You know, Rick's College. And now I actually have to share with someone?! They have two kids - one a year older than Seara, the other a year younger than Elijah. So they are young like us, too. Weird.

(4) Okay, you know how wards have personalities? Some wards are really serious and some are really talkative and some are really private, etc, etc. Well, our new ward here has a definite personality: they are hilarious. I mean, these people crack jokes right and left and are constantly busting up (except when they are spiritual - ie. Sacrament Meeting). Even in Relief Society!! Let me give you an example. We found this complex we're living in about six weeks ago and I emailed the local Bishop to ask some questions and get some info. When he wrote me back he answered all my questions, then added this as the end:


"I'll begin praying that you'll find a residence within our ward boundaries. We would be blessed to have your family with us for what ever amount of time it ends up. Your testimony and gospel strength resonate in your e.mail. What a loss to your current ward. One of the tender mercies of the gospel is that where ever we go we will find other faithful saints with open arms and smiles on their faces waiting to greet us. Regardless of where you end up out here, you'll be loved.

"In the meantime if you need us to burn a cow as a sacrifice to the real estate moguls in your behalf so that you'll end up in our ward...just let me know. We have a stable full of cows that we use just for this purpose.

"Looking forward to your arrival. Let me know if you need other information.

"Take care,
"Bishop Cooper
"Columbia 2nd Ward...so that you don't get confused by those who lie in wait to deceive. ;-)"


Well, I wrote back to thank him and tell him he had my go-ahead on the cow sacrifice. And he wrote back:


"Roger the cow sacrifice. Will do. Hopefully the smoke will be blowing in a favorable position.

"Keep me posted.

"Bishop."


Need I say more?!

Musings about Maryland

As I sat in church on Sunday, the song from Cheers ran through my head ...

Sometimes you want to go
where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
your name.

"Yes. Yes, I do. I do want to go where everybody knows my name." I think I'm sick of moving. (Amazing, I know. :) Ugh. Here I go again. I've done this a million times before, and I guess I'll have to do it one more time. Don't get me wrong, this is definitely exciting. I'm just tired. And I think I will be for a very, very long time. When I'm done packing, I'll have a new baby, and when I've got the baby in a good schedule, I've got to potty train Seara, and once that is done we'll be moving again because Samuel should be done with grad school. Are you ever not tired in life? My mom had eight kids and with only two at home (they are nearly 18 and nearly 16), she is just as busy as she ever was. So I'm guessing I'll pretty much be tired until I die. Gosh, I can't wait to die! :)


Okay, okay, for real. Here are the things we have noticed about Maryland:

(1) It is SUPER green. I mean, wow. I love plants and trees and everything outdoors, so I am in absolute heaven here. It is so beautiful. The only downside is that all those trees cover up what you are looking for. Example: we drove up and down one street at least three times to find Home Depot because it was hidden behind all the beautiful foliage.

(2) People look pretty much the same as they do anywhere else. The only difference is that in Spanish Fork we knew that some 90% of the people we saw were LDS, and here about 99.9% of people are not. I feel like I'm constantly doing the Disneyland watch - keeping eyes peeled for garment lines and BYU apparel.

(3) Baltimore is what happens when there is no city planning for 250 years. To come home from church we have to take three lefts at four-way lights to stay on the same road the entire time (because if we go straight at the light we somehow change roads?!) Our 45 minute drive to see Sam's school on Sunday ended up taking 2 1/2 hours because we kept getting lost. Now I know why we were told not to live inside Baltimore. I swear, we almost died. The projects in the US are so much worse than the ghettos of South America. In the US the gangs have access to terrifying weapons and heavy drugs, in most of South America, they have neither. Its amazing how brazen people are when they are high on drugs and surrounded by powerful guns. I now know where I never, ever, ever want to go again. This is what it looked like except with a ton of people hanging out in the streets looking like they wanted to kill you.


(4) I don't really need to say it, but Utah isn't very racially diverse. We all know it. And it is no shock to leave Utah and see different races when you are an adult. But let me tell you what happens when you have a one year-old. So when I took Elijah to the doctor's office to get his teeth fixed we were sitting in the waiting room, right? And this black man enters the waiting room with his about 10 year-old daughter. Well, Elijah had never seen a black person before and he was VERY interested. So he follows this little girl around and keeps trying to touch her skin and her hair. I grabbed him as fast as my pregnant body can, but I had a hard time keeping him from staring and pointing. My way of dealing with it? Saying aloud to Lije, "What a cute girl, huh, Lije? Yup, she does have cute hair, buddy." Lets just say we disappeared as quickly as possible!

Life continues to be really exciting. The kids are adjusting well and have discovered their own favorite thing about Maryland: the elevator at our apartment complex. They get more excited about riding it than I do about going on Splash Mountain!

the Expert Mover

Today as I was doing laundry I got to thinking ... wow, I have moved a lot of times in my life. I mean, A LOT. So I decided to figure out how often I have moved. In my life I have lived in seven countries and sixteen cities. And I have moved TWENTY FIVE TIMES. Isn't that incredible?! (And quite appropriate, considering that I am 25 years old as well.)

I made this map with dots where I have lived, but for some reason it automatically zooms in to North America. So you have to zoom out once to see everywhere.

View Larger Map

For my own sake, I documented all the moves. You don't have to read this part, but it will give you a general idea of where I have lived and when. In case you have no life and feel incredibly bored. :)

1982
Jul - I am born - my family lives in Orem, Utah

1983
Apr - Orem to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

1984
Dec - Santo Domingo to San Juan, Puerto Rico

1989
Aug - San Juan to Quito, Ecuador

1991
Jul - Quito to Sandy, Utah

2000
Jan - Sandy to Cochabamba, Bolivia
Jul - Cochabamba to Sandy
Sep - Sandy to BYU Dorms (Provo)

2001
Apr - Dorms to Sandy
Jul - Sandy to The Elms (Provo)

2002
May - The Elms to the MTC
Jul - MTC to Braga, Portugal
Aug - Braga to Gaia
Nov - Gaia to Senhora da Hora

2003
May - Senhora da Hora to Ovar
Sep - Ovar to Rio Tinto
Nov - Rio Tinto to Santiago, Chile

2004
Jan - Santiago to Condo Row (Provo)
Apr - Condo Row to my friend Heidi's house (Provo)
Aug - Heidi's to Wyview (Provo)

2005
Nov - Wyview to Samuel's Grandparent's house (Provo)

2006
Jan - Granparent's to my brother Trenton's house (West Valley)
Mar - West Valley to the Basement Apartment (Provo)
Jul - Basement Apartment to Summerhays (Provo)
Nov - Summerhays to Spanish Fork

2008
May - Spanish Fork to Elkridge, Maryland

Before & After Landscaping

Now that we no longer have a home, I thought I'd finally post the before and after pictures. Here is before:



And here is after:


I should have taken more close-ups, because far away pictures don't do justice to the 14 trees, 3 euonymous bushes, 1 day lily cluster, 36 hyacinths, 84 daffodils, and 86 tulips I planted. So here is my lame-o photoshop-added notes on the landscaping: (click on it to blow it up)



(And by daisies I meant tulips. I didn't plant any daisies. :)

Moving with the Ricks

Starting with last week ...

Wednesday night: We sleep on the floor. Actually, I slept on a crib mattress. Who knew those were so uncomfortable?!

Thursday: I clean and pack like a nut all day. I have my book club goodbye party at 7pm. I love that book club!! These have become some of my dearest friends. Lets just say that the first book club started at 7pm and ended by 8pm. The last one before this started at 7pm and ended at 10:30pm. That is how much we love each other! We finish packing and end up leaving for my parent's at 1am.

Janell Doyle, Jennifer James, Melody Wulfenstein, me, Pam Raleigh, Jessica McShinsky, and Tracy Griffiths. (The picture needs some work. I'll fix it once I have my computer back up.)
Friday: Samuel drove down to work (an hour commute) for his very last day. I spend the day with my mom running errands and prepping to leave.

Saturday: More errands, more prepping.

Sunday: Samuel leaves at 6am. He stops at 9am in Wyoming to attend church, and then keeps going. He ends up going through Utah, Wyoming, and most of Nebraska. He ends the night in Lincoln, Nebraska at a Motel 6.

An amazing Motel 6 bed spread. Obviously a 5 diamond hotel.

Monday: A few morning errands, and off to the airport by 12:30pm. I have two toddlers, a giant belly, a double stroller, and three large carry ons. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't, so use your imagination. We had a layover in Chicago and arrived at my sister Cara's house in Pittsburgh by 11:30 pm. Samuel finished Nebraska and drove through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to arrive in Pittsburgh shortly after me.

Tuesday: My bro-in-law fixed up Elijah's teeth. (Thanks a million, Barry!) Samuel and I spend the day as zombies. Monday was a hard day!!

Wednesday: Both of us feel a ton better. My sister refers to this time as the eye of the storm - we get a small, still, and quiet break before we are thrust back into the tornado of our lives.

Samuel coloring with little Liam (my nephew is named Liam just like my brother)

Seara loves to play alone

She also LOVES to draw

"Mine is green!"

"His is pink!"


Thursday: The kids love being with their cute cousins. And with their dad. In fact, everyone loves Samuel. While Cara ran a quick errand we tended her napping 7 month-old. When Ami woke up I went in to get her and she just broke down. I tried and tried to comfort her, to no avail. Finally Samuel came up to help. Ami reached for him and when he took her she was immediately pacified. Lame. Elijah refused to let me hold or touch him all day. He only wants Sam. I'm serious. My own son won't let me pick him up. He did this yesterday too. What on earth?!

Ethan (3), Ami (7 mo), Hallie (6), Liam (5), Seara (2), Elijah (1)
By the way, we figured out once that all six of these kids could have been born to one mother. They are just barely far enough apart. Isn't that nuts?!

My big sister Cara and I
Friday: Tomorrow morning we leave around 7:30am to drive through the rest of Pennsylvania and on to Maryland. We should arrive at our new apartment by noon. Hopefully we don't get lost. I won't have the internet until Tuesday of next week at the soonest. Do these people not realize that the internet is MY LIFE?! :) Hopefully I can survive!!

Surreal

My house is empty. I mean EMPTY. My driveway, however, has a gigantic ABF semi-truck, full of everything I own. Needless to say, we're sleeping on the floor tonight. I can't believe this is happening so quickly! I think I've been too busy to feel sad, but its just starting to hit me. Yikes!

I really should be packing ...

So some guy at Sam's work did this rendering of I-don't-know-what. Recognize that couple? (I'd like to point out that the drink is Martinelli's Apple Cider. I swear. And that I've never been to wherever that place is, although right now I really think I'd like to be there!)


And then, to add to the randomness of this post, I just want to add this. Sam did a google search of "What fonts does UVSC use?" and this is what came up. Notice the last website listed on the FIRST page of the search. (Click on the picture to enlarge it, if you need to.) Bizarre, huh?!

(For those of you who don't know, that is my little sister's blog!)

Clone of a Cinnabon

Samuel's favorite food in the world is cinnamon rolls. For his birthday he never wants cake, he always wants cinnamon rolls. So, being the amazing kind and supportive wife that I am, I have spent the last few years experimenting with different recipes. This is Samuel's favorite. Its from AllRecipes.com, in case you care. (Yes, I should be packing. I know. But I'm overwhelmed. So instead of working, I blog about cinnamon rolls. :)



INGREDIENTS
1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup margarine, melted
4 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS
Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle; press Start.

After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.

Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

a Bad Bunny & a Good Girl

I just wanted to share two pictures. First, I found Seara's bunny in time-out. I thought it was pretty funny, so I took a picture.Second, no, I wasn't talking about Seara when I titled part of this post "a Good Girl". I was talking about myself. Our moving truck arrives one week from today. If you know me at all, you'd know that normally we'd be all packed and living out of suitcases by this point. But, I'm stressed and exhausted and have done basically no packing. Why? Because I have no boxes. And why do I have no boxes? Because I haven't looked for any. I just kept telling my sister that I was hoping I could close my eyes and boxes would appear at my house. Well, this afternoon my dear friend Heidi called and offered me some that she will bring by tomorrow, and then tonight I found this in my back yard:Yup, my backyard neighbor had about 10 boxes that she didn't need, so she threw them over the fence. See? I must have been a good girl!

My Last Day Mentoring

For the last several months I have had the neatest opportunity to volunteer as a mentor at The Heritage School in Provo. Heritage is a residential treatment center for at-risk teenagers- meaning that the kids stay at least a year or two until their treatment is complete. It is a locked down school, so the kids rarely get to leave campus, and for an outsider to get in you have to go through a secured gate. To even become a mentor I had to do about 12 hours of training, plus a thorough background and security check. I was assigned as a mentor to a darling girl named Monique. Each week we would get together for an hour or two and visit. Sometimes we just took walks around campus, other times we cooked (black beans & rice - yum!!), and quite often we played games. She is the master of card games and taught me about ten new ones. Needless to say, I got creamed most of the time. (Except when we played Phase 10. I rocked that one.) Tonight was my last time visiting with her. We are both so sad! I am really going to miss mentoring. It gave me the chance to do something apart from my kids (you know, the whole develop my own identity thing), and at the same time, it really helped me put my life in perspective. No matter how tough my life seems, it is nothing compared to the kids at this school. So sad to see this phase of my life end!

Goodbye, Grandma Ricks

Yesterday was Grandma Ricks' funeral. It was, of course, a very bitter sweet event. Bitter because of the loss of someone you love and respect. Sweet because I can't help but love funerals. Now, before you think I'm so morbid, think about it. For that one hour you get to see that person through the most charitable, Christ-like eyes. Everyone who loves them gathers together and speaks of all their most wonderful qualities and traits. What a neat opportunity to get to know the person better!!

The other thing I love about funerals is that all the family gathers together - including distant people from distant places. See, I am making documentaries about each of Samuel's and my grandparents and great-grandparents (as couples, not individuals). That is 4 full docs (appx 1 hour of each grandparent set) and 8 brief docs (appx 30 min of each great set). So to make the docs, I am interviewing all of Samuel's and my aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, and grandparents. Its a rather daunting task when you are Mormon and your families are HUGE! Nevertheless, I feel very motivated to do this and I love almost everything about it (except the stress). The wonderful thing for me about this funeral is that I got 10 interviews done in two days - and with a lot of people who live far away enough that I worried they would pass on before I got the chance to speak with them! Okay, so the whole event added a world of stress to my already increasing senility. But how could I turn down this opportunity?! Some of these guys are in their 90s!!

Samuel's grandma was a wonderful person. We lived in her home for a month, and then in her basement apartment for five months, and we grew to love her so much. Grandpa is surely heart-broken to lose his sweetheart, although he is relieved for her to finally be out of so much pain. Grandma found out she had lung cancer last fall, and progressively went downhill until she succumbed last Thursday. We were all relieved to see her suffering end. I am just sure she is as busy as can be in the Spirit World! So, for those who are interested, here is her obituary:

Aretta Newren Ricks passed away on April 24, 2008, at the age of 83 in the presence of her loving family. She was born in Provo, Utah on March 6, 1925, the fifth child of Leon Newren and Clothield Young Newren. The majority of her life was lived in Provo. She attended BY Academy, Timpanogos Elementary and Dixon Junior High, where she was the 9th Grade Class President. She was the valedictorian of her Provo High School graduating class.

She studied microbiology at Brigham Young University, where she met the love of her life, Welby Willis Ricks. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple June 1, 1945. She was the mother of seven children: Stephen (Kathryn) of Minot, ND; John, dec., (Marilynn) Sandy, UT; Timothy (Betsy) Scarsdale, NY; Suanne Jones (Dennis), Mapleton, UT; Cynthia Dayton (Mark), Provo, UT; Mathew (Kaye), Winslow, AZ; and Daniel (Jane), Salt Lake City, UT. She was the grandmother of 35 and great grandmother of 28. All of her 5 sons were Eagle Scouts; 6 of her 7 children served missions; all of her children graduated from college and several obtained graduate degrees. She remembered every birthday and anniversary, and wrote weekly to every child, grandchild, niece, and nephew while they served missions.

She was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints all of her life. She served in leadership positions in her Church and her community, including as President of the following: Provo School District PTA, March of Dimes (Provo Chapter), Stake Relief Society, Federated Women's Club of Utah (Provo Chapter), Paideia Sorosis, and Ward Primary. As a fine operatic vocalist, she brought music into the lives of all who knew her, including singing with the Madsen Memorial Chorus more than 30 years. She was an accomplished poetess who published and won awards for her works. All who knew her, especially her husband of more than 62 years, will miss her energy, her cheerfulness, her intelligence, and her faithful dedication to Church, family, friends and community.

Today is our Anniversary ...

... of meeting each other! On this day four years ago I first attended my new summer ward. I had officially decided to hate all boys, but in a weak moment I decided to check out what the ward had to offer. Now, in a large group of LDS singles you have to have certain restrictions to wean you down to a small group of possibilities, right?

Restriction 1: I want a really righteous boy - so I limit my looking to the guys blessing and passing the sacrament. (Not that that is a really safe assumption, but I needed something quick and easy.) That whittles me down to eleven guys.

Restriction 2: Silly, perhaps, but I like when guys wear white shirts and suits to pass the sacrament. Wear what you want to firesides, funerals, etc., but when you officiate in the priesthood, I like my man to look the part. That whittles me down to about six guys.

Restriction 3: I don't like blonds. I'm okay with brunettes. But I LOVE black hair. Especially when its slightly wavy. (Silly, yes, but true. Sorry to all blond guys, especially to my five blond brothers!) If I include brunettes, this whittles me down to about three guys.

Okay, so (God forgive me) while the guys start passing the sacrament I take a look. Not bad. This one guy has written "I am Sam" on his name tag, which I thought was a funny reference to the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess. While I was staring at him and thinking about that, I realize what I am doing. See the problems boys cause?! That marked the end of my interest in the boys in the ward.

Well, after the whole three hour block I went to sign up for a new member interview with the Bishop. While I am signing my name on the list posted to the Bishop's office door I make some dumb comment about how Sunday is "my day" to do "what I want", only to notice this "I am Sam" guy looking over my shoulder, reading my name.

"Are you President Smith's daughter?"
[Me kicking myself for making such a stupid comment]
"Yes."
"Your dad was my mission president!"
"Oh wow! What's your name?"
"Sam Ricks. I think we met one time - when I got to the mission."
[Me racking my brain to remember him. I remember a lot of the Elders I met, but ... oh yeah! I do have one vague memory of talking to Elder Fackrell, and looking over at this really young-looking, dark-haired Elder standing by a couch.]
"Oh yeah! You have really grown up since then ... [Awkward pause - I am really good at making intelligent comments when I meet boys] ... anyway, it's nice to meet you. We should hang out some time."
"Yeah. Well, see ya!"
"Bye."

Now to this day I insist that my "we should hang out" comment was just being polite - I say it to everyone. But, to Sam that was flirting. And it gave him hope. See, three days before then, on a Thursday night, Samuel was talking to his ex-mission comp roommate about how he was sick of the not-so-good-girls in the ward (lets just say that our ward had something like 95% activity for boys, and about 30% activity for girls). So, Samuel had decided that he was going to ask the mission president's daughter out. He knew she was at BYU, and although he didn't know her name, he was determined to find her. Well, it was just his luck that a couple days later I showed up at his ward. And apparently I inadvertently flirted with him. So, he emailed me on Tuesday to ask me out for Friday. Unfortunately, I already had tickets to the show he wanted to go to that night. So, I invited him to come with my sister, my mission comp, and I. Well, he agreed and paid for his roommates so that they would come with him. To make a long story short, we had a pretty miserable time and each wrote about each other in our journals that night. He wrote the following about me:

"I like her personality, although it may be a little dominating for me... She’s not really my type as far as dating goes, and I don’t really have any aspirations of dating her... I just wonder if I could hack it and if we’d always have to be doing different things to keep her attention."

Obviously I made an awesome first impression. No worries, I wrote in my journal that talking to Samuel was "like talking to a wall." (And apparently I have experience talking to walls.) Well, thanks to my little sister, we hung out again a couple days later and actually had a pretty good time. Three months later we were married. And now, four years later, I am 7 months pregnant with our third child, we are selling our first home, and we are moving back east for grad school. Who knew so much could happen in so little time!

August 2004
July 2005
June 2006
September 2007
March 2008