Pain and Pleasure in Boston/Newburyport

This week we have been in Boston with Saydi and Jeff and their darling family as well as Eva and Adam and their adorable kids.  One of the reasons for coming was Dad/Rick’s 40th reunion at the Harvard Business School which sounded so fun!

Just before we left, the little pinch in my hip that had bothering me through all the wildness of last week….a book club dinner party for 24, TOFW, a TV show, tons of radio shows to launch the book and on and on turned against me and morphed into major sciatica pain.  Even though my back doesn’t hurt one bit, there is a lot of pain in my hip with shooting pains down my leg. Plus a little catch that feels kind of like someone slammed my finger in the door and then takes off down the road without noticing. Yikes!  I have downed more pain pill this week than I have in my entire life put together!  

As fate would have it, Dad/Rick also developed a nasty case of gout in both toes, even though the Internet says that’s not possible. He now has shooting pains running like lighting running around in both feet. Just when you want to look young and vibrant for the 40 year reunion at the Harvard Business School, we somehow fit right in with the “old guys”.

Needless to say we are going to be happy to be at the clinic in the morning to get some help from cortisone and whatever it takes to make things better. After we catch our breath with the pain we just have to stop and laugh. It’s so ridiculous that we both became what looks like a ninety year old couple hobbling along the best we can! 

 

 

 

Saydi was the kindest, most attentive nursemaid ever and she and Jeff gave up their wonderful bed for us and slept on the air mattress in the “guest room” downstairs.  How kind and helpful was that?  We are forever grateful!

 

The Shumways house is always so warm and welcoming. I love the beautiful soft colors, the way the light comes in the windows and the engaging conversations that are always there!

 

 

The Shumway kitchen is always bursting with gourmet food too. We had some terrific meals, including this breakfast with a whole wheat pancake recipe from Shawni. I’m the one who accidently poured all that syrup on the plate. Silly Grammie!

 

 

 

Their garden is bursting with beautiful flowers, veggies and fruits!  Emmeline kept bringing us raspberries and strawberries and Hazel and Charlie enjoyed sharing their crops which included potatoes and squash. I regret not taking more pictures but sadly I was thinking more about pain than the panorama of garden vegetables. Going down those back stairs seemed impossible!

 

We did find a few hours to drive to the beautifully picturesque village of Newburyport where Adam and Eva live!  We had so much fun sharing their creative lifestyle and hearing about their exciting adventures!  Eva home-schools the kids and they are far beyond their peers not only in academics but in creativity. They are truly amazing!  As you might guess their house is full of love and crammed with imaginative projects!

The Shumway kids fit right in with their own creativity!

 

Here is her oldest (8) who created this sign himself and made $17 in one afternoon.

Also an avid reader, he is just finishing this book which is the 19th of similar size in a series that he loves.

 

So many fun things to see in their beautiful home. This woman’s photography is beyond spectacular!  She has an exhibit on her last book Lost in Learning at a local art shop and is bringing the exhibit out to BYU and the U of U in November where she will be speaking about the process of creating this amazing book of photography and the written word.

 

 

What a family!  (Shucks, should have turned off the flash!)

Adam and Eva had just returned from a BIF Conference where she presented a fifteen minute speech about her life. Wow, do we wish we had heard that. This is one remarkable woman! I think this is the first time she and Adam have ever left the kids and they missed them dearly.

One of the kids’ jobs is to feed the animals at a nearby farm once a week. It was a delight to see how much all the kids loved the animals. What an idyllic childhood these kids are living….including the Shumways!

 

Such a beautiful spot on earth:

 

 

 

This little cluster of kids are instant friends whenever they see each other. We’re so glad that Saydi lives so close and can enjoy the beach in the summer (and the winter) and this beautiful place for children to play!

Sadly you can’t see Hazel very well but we suddenly realized that we had kids who were 8,7,6,5,4, and almost 3!   What an adorable bunch….

 

 

 

Plus adorable little Peter who was as good a solid block of gold and has the cutest expressions ever!  What a guy!

We are forever grateful that Saren found Eva in Bulgaria and brought her home to us!  And we are even more grateful to her courageous and wonderful parents who lent her to us for few years, not knowing at the time whether or not they would ever see her again!  Who would have ever imagined when Adam and Eva got married that they do all they have done, be all they would be along with her parents who live in an apartment in their house. 

Heavenly Father is in the details! 

Nothing like a farm to get you in touch with the earth. FUN!

Time Out for Women….Logan

What fun we had this weekend with our friends from Time Out for Women…henceforth known as TOFW! This isn’t the entire “cast” but we are so privileged to be on the same program at Utah State University with “Mercy River”, Emily Freeman, and Michael Wilcox!

Also our amazing friend Mariama Kolon who we learn from every time we hear her extraordinary story and her supportive friends who wear the most incredible clothing! Sweet Christiana on the left along with her husband and son from Ghana were Noah and Kristi’s dear friends at BYU. when they were in school together. They came to our home for Thanksgiving one year so it was a fun reunion. Such terrific people!

 

 

We met old and new friends and so many who have supported Dad and I through the years. Below is a mom (second from the right) with her daughters and daughters-in-law, there together enjoying their mom’s Christmas gift to them…tickets to TOFW.

 

Our supportive sister-in-law Karen came to be with us along with sensational Saren who missed our talk because she got stuck in the Logan Marathon traffic but enjoyed the rest of the day with us!

 

What could be more fun than going back to my alma mater and presenting a talk with our darling Shawni on the very stage where, as a music major I participated in countless concerts in orchestra and concert choir performances while I lived there for four years.  Never in a million years 40 years ago, could I have “thought up” this dream!

Deliberate Couples Produce Great Families

 

Isn't it ironic that in order to drive a motorcycle, or operate a car you have to go through a long process of reading instructions, practicing and training, but to learn how to "drive" a marriage or to "operate" children there is basically no training and certainly no instruction manual?  Sure we can find help from counselors...at a huge cost when a marriage is in crisis or a child is out of control but why wait for that to happen? Spending the time to think about goals for our marriage relationships and to organize some specific, measurable family systems that will make it much less likely that we will need those counselors later is a crucial need! 
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Last weekend, in order to help with that problem, PowerofMoms.com held their first ever Retreat for couples.  The Power of Moms has held many wonderful Retreats just for moms but as they get ready to launch a companion website - "The Power of Families" - it was exciting to see them get going on working with dads AND moms who want to be Proactive Partners and Deliberate Parents!  An outstanding group of 80 parents arranged for grandparents, friends, neighbors and good samaritans to take their kids to soccer and baseball games, music lessons and choir practices so that they could feel the power of a lot of deliberate couples in the same room, figuring out how they can do their most important job as spouse and parent better!

The founders of Power of Moms, Saren Loosli (our daughter) and April Perry, along with their husbands Jared (who created their beautiful website with his magnificent mind educated at MIT) and Eric (a Harvard Business School graduate with ideas pouring out of his head) along with a little help from the Eyres had fun presenting ways to empower families.

On Friday night, attendees were given specific methods to get our to-do lists and goals, dreams and ideas in order through a program created by April called Mind Organization (based on David Allen's international best-seller, Getting Things Done).  It was thought-provoking and freeing. Instead of feeling burdened by sometimes literally hundreds of projects, emails, calls and demands, April taught us how to feel the freedom of knowing what to do with all the opportunities, emails and papers that fly at us daily and how to prioritize in order to relieve the stress.

On Saturday, parents had the chance to discuss how to create better Partnerships in Parenting and were introduced to ways to set up Family Systems that work:  A Family Legal System (laws and discipline), a Family Economy (so crucial in today's society filled with kids who feel entitled to have what they want right now without having to work for it) and how to create a Family Culture that helps kids feel pride in being part of something that is bigger than themselves and something that will last, even when they have left home.

It was an exhilarating weekend, not only for the attendees but also for Richard and I as we rubbed shoulders with so many good parents who are raising the next generation with power and purpose!

Eric and April presenting their ideas with Saren taking pictures in the background: 

 

Saren, April and Tiffany Sowby, the event organizer:

Two generations of deliberate parents! Megan Stewart and husband Wes came with Megan's parents Bryce and Mary Croxford who still have young children of their own.

True and Horrifying Confessions!

 

It was July 28th and Rick and I were on our way back to Bear Lake. We had an appointment with the “shoulder doctor” and the Dr.’s office was on the way. We however, were stopped in our tracks when the Dr. said he had looked at the MRI and discovered that one muscle in the rotator cuff had completely torn through and another one had been torn off the bone many years ago.

He then gave us the cheerful news that after surgery Poor Richard would need to be in a brace/sling for 6 weeks without moving his shoulder, then another six weeks doing intense physical therapy and then it would be another two months after that before he would be able to swing a tennis racket.  Immediately we decided that the journey to recovery needed to start right away. We went straight back home and prepared for surgery the next morning. Even though there were still several families at the lake, many had gone home and those who were left offered to help clean and clear things out for the renters who were arriving on the weekend.

Fast forward to day before yesterday.  We had fun with Saren and Jared and their “five in five years.” We drove to Ogden and took the kids to Cars 2 and then we had a yummy dinner at the fabulous Sonora Grill with Saren and Jared.  Early the next morning Dad went to Logan to help Grandma and Sheri and I went to church with the Looslis. Dad came back to pick me up and visit for a while.  Just as we got up to leave Jared said, “Wait Silas and Oliver have something to tell you.”  “Okay,” smiled Dad, “let’s hear it.”  

“Well I think you better sit down for this one,” Jared said and we sat down. Oliver then spilled the beans about what happened with details also pouring out of Silas like water out of a spout.  

You see that tractor in the background there in the picture below that the grandkids have been told a hundred times not to get on because it’s dangerous and not ours, it’s our neighbor’s?

Well our darling twins Oliver and Silas got on the tractor to play. Their cousin McKay was playing on our sailboat behind the tractor which was attached by a trailer hitch. There is nothing in this world that Silas and Oliver love more than mechanical things and how they work. Apparently Silas began pulling knobs and and fiddling with switches for all he was worth when the tractor suddenly STARTED! The worst news is that it was IN GEAR and they had no idea in their wildest dreams how to stop it!  They were pouring out details so fast they we’re still not sure we have all of them but this is the gist of what happened next:

With two six year olds (we’re not absolutely sure whether they were filled with glee or terror…probably both) at the wheel and a five year old hanging on to the sailboat mast (we’re pretty sure in terror) they made a pretty interesting trip around the sandy area where the tractor sat. They did admit to crushing a bucket and bumping in to one of the jet skiis (which luckily was already defunct). 

 

That said, they somehow managed to miss all the these fences (below) and the pavilion (above). They also managed to miss the lake and missed hitting any bumps or large clumps of sagebrush that might have thrown them off when we can only imagine the worst that could happen.  They finally headed for a hill of sand that was too steep for the little tractor and after spinning it’s wheels for a while, it clicked a few times and stopped.

 

 

Now that a month has passed, I managed to avoid fainting but I have to admit feeling pretty weak in the knees by the time the whole story spilled out. I could imagine them driving into the kitchen of the pavilion and getting clonked on the head with debris or hitting the hot tub or driving away into the wild blue yonder of the lake. The possibilities are endless! 

Of course there were lessons learned….they had gone down there without telling their parents who were preparing dinner and didn’t even know they were gone.  They were sure that they would never play on the tractor again AND they knew how good it felt to tell us the truth and get it off their consciences (we hadn’t seen each other since that day until then).

McKay was the first one to tell his parents (I think just before prayers that night) and the twins, we think, were in quite a lot of trouble when the news was out! Oliver said that he was telling Silas not to fiddle with the controls. Silas admitted that he was the one who actually started the tractor and was very repentant!  Luckily Jared (who grew up driving tractors himself when he was only a few years older than these guys) was able to start the tractor and get it back to its original place without any harm done other than near heart-attacks experienced by parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles.  

 

Once we recovered from the original shock and now that we know that everybody’s okay, you just can’t help but look at these three musketeers and laugh.  What a great story this will be for the rest of their lives!  Left to right: McKay (5), Oliver and Silas (6)

 

 

Still we’re just glad that it wasn’t this tractor!  The next time you go to the farm in Ashton Saren and Jared, maybe you better double check that you know exactly where the keys are to this big guy!

 

 

Winners!

Our fun give-away is over and the winners are below.  Thanks to all of you who participated by pre-ordering The Entitlement Trap and getting the free download of the honesty adventure in the Alexander’s Amazing Adventures series. We think your kids will love it! 

We so appreciate all our friends who look in at Eyrealm and support us through all these crazy book adventures! “Selling” is not my thing so your support is treasured. One last thought: even though the give-away is over, The Entitlement Trap can still be purchased on Amazon HERE for $11.44 instead of $18 if you order before it debuts on September 6th.

Congratulations to our winners!

Premium Prize Winner
Julie Oliphant

Gold Prize Winner
Sarah Granata

Silver Prize Winners
Teri Ross
Amy Bjorkman
Barbara Christiansen
Larissa Call
Melanie Burgess Easthope
Angie Pegram
Lori Gertsch
Emily Rubino