Observation, Inspiration & Confirmation... Independent Thought

One challenge my husband and his colleagues face in the business world is the new generations and their lack of independent thinking.  They know how to click and check boxes, but there seems to be a lack of effort to understand and problem solve.  Looking around I think that this can be said about much of society.  Every community you drive though has the same stores, the same restaurants.  (We like to use our Yelp app to find small, local eateries.)  Stepping off the beaten path definitely has its reward… especially when the beaten path society is on is, for the most part, heading to a destination to which I do not aspire.

Recently I wrote about how participating in family traditions makes us unique.  What about traditions which involve “not participating?”   Traditions evolve, and lately I have been considering the evolution of Not Doing.  I thought of a few things that we traditionally do not do – and I see that these evolved through the process of observing (ourselves and other), praying for inspiration and later receiving confirmation – that is, knowing that this was the path on which we preferred to be found.  These traditions may continue to change and evolve, but the underlying principle is that of making conscious choices about our life’s activities.

Some things we do not do:

Playing together.

We do not play soccer.  I am not a soccer mom.  Nothing against soccer, this is more about families being completely overscheduled.  A couple months ago I heard a young mom say that it was time for the next child to begin soccer, as though it was time for kindergarten.  I felt sad knowing that she would now have so many children in so many activities that it would spread the family thin.  The idea seemed to be that every other kid in the neighborhood was signing up – but I bet most of those young children would rather be climbing a tree or digging in the dirt or drawing with sidewalk chalk – or even better going to the park with their siblings and parents.  Organized sports for young children --- I just don’t get it.  The evolution of our non-soccer tradition began simply and for two reasons… we couldn’t afford the fees involved and my husband was always out of town so that I had the care of all of those young children.  We did play little league baseball for several years with the older boys.  That was fun, hectic, and I realized that home life was greatly improved when we were involved in activities together.   A few years later Nathan was playing basketball and we were all (five younger siblings) there watching.  Another mom mentioned how each of her several children had a game at the same time and were spread about at different schools.   I felt strongly that this is not how I wanted to spend my weekends – particularly during soccer season when it is cold and rainy.  I liked hearing of families that allowed only one sport per year.  We have encouraged basketball for those who are interested – it is a fun sport to watch, they will actually play it when they are out of school, and it is indoors.  We have also encouraged activities that they can do with siblings such as dance classes (girls) or piano/music lessons.  Mostly, we have tried to think of positive activities that our family can do together – usually hiking.  Hiking isn’t always popular, but we our outdoors, we are together, and we know that they are making great memories.  Cross country, tennis and middle-school running are all winding down this week.  My kids are in high school/8^th grade and these sports have been great experiences!  Good teamwork, developing physically and socially, we love going to watch them participate – this seems like an important part of their life at this stage!  However, I am sooo very excited to have more time at home together as we get into the holidays and before spring activities begin.  I have zero regrets at how we have chosen to spend our children’s precious childhood years.

Notes from Jackie

We do not play video games (at home).  I should say we do not own video games.  A few observations here – when the boys were young I had several moms tell me that they wished they had never purchased their child’s playstation (or whatever they were using then).  “Why don’t you get rid of it?” I would wonder.  They didn’t like how it took their child’s time and attention, how they never went outside to play anymore.  I also observed how children would be glued to their Gameboys.  I wondered how they were going to learn about the world around them when all they did was stare at that little screen.  When did they learn to interact… oh yeah – when they were playing soccer…  So, much to the disappointment of our children, we decided to Just Say No to videogames.  Only a couple of the children have really cared – and it has been confirmed to me that these are exactly the children who needed them absent in their lives.  We do own a Wii – with the stipulation that the games had to involve physical activity.  Sometimes the Wii “disappears” for months at a time – and we don’t miss it.  As the children have gotten older they are more likely to thank me than to ever see that their childhood was somehow lacking.  The confirmation I have felt regarding this decision is ongoing and I have no regrets!

We do not drink caffeine.  This one started in my childhood.  After making deliveries at the local grocery stores, the Pepsi truck would then drive to my grandpa’s ranch to load up his shed with cases of soda.  I guess they really liked Pepsi.   Upon marrying my father (51 years ago today), my mother also grew accustomed to drinking the stuff – and the story goes that she could hardly wait at night for my dad to come home at night because he would bring her a Pepsi from work.  When she realized just how much she cared, she began to realize that she was becoming addicted and began to work on weaning herself.  I remember as a child we would have Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, but never after the age of 9 or 10.  For myself, I think that the taste is disgusting anyway.  In college I took some physiology classes that showed how caffeine intensifies and then takes the place of our own neurotransmitters – thus is highly addictive like nicotine.  Mark once ordered a Pepsi while we were dating – and, though I know I didn’t say anything, I somehow conveyed my disapproval (apparently I have a certain “look”).   Thus it goes – we don’t have caffeinated drinks in our family.  Over the years I also observed how a few of my children couldn’t handle the sugar when they drank any sort of soda – so we cut those way down and what do you know? – no regrets. 

We love the outdoors!

We do not watch TV.  What a shock Mark gave the internet provider in Texas when he was getting us all set up and we turned down the “amazing” offer of Direct TV for only an extra $10/month.  This tradition has definitely evolved over time.  We didn’t have a TV for the first couple years after we married but then someone gave us a small portable TV… this was at a time when I was completely out of commission with morning sickness and Mark was going through a long recovery after having a bone tumor removed.  We were careful about what we watched, mostly PBS shows for the kids… but eventually we made two important observations.  TV wastes too much time – this is super obvious.  The other was that the messages about family – the children are sassy, the fathers are made to look less-than-capable and the general attitude is far from ideal.  We have never had more than a couple channels… and for almost 14 years we have had no channels.  I have had friends adopt this same approach to TV – their families miss TV for a couple weeks and then can’t believe they ever had it as part of their lives.  On the other hand we have a home theatre and love to invite friends to watch movies.  Confirmation for this tradition comes each time we watch TV in a hotel – besides the very lame lineup of shows available… what about those commercials?  Ugh!  One more observation about TV – I hung onto it for awhile to watch the news… until I observed ….well, I am getting too opinionated, but let’s just say I have many other options for getting news if I want to learn what is going on.

I have a few other not-doing traditions, but this is getting too long. 

Just like I don’t think that everyone needs to take old-fashioned photos every couple of years to be successful, there are happy families who watch TV and play soccer – Yet, as everyone seems to want to live the same type of life, doing all the same things...  

 I would just encourage all families to think for themselves, look into the future and choose activities which will strengthen their most important relationships, within the walls of their own home!

Family Traditions... what we ALWAYS do!!

"But.... that is what we ALWAYS do!!"
I started to hear this more and more as the children grew older... whether a cherished holiday tradition or making homemade pizza on a Saturday night - the children knew what they wanted... and what they wanted was for things to be done the way that "we ALWAYS do them" - - - The funny thing was that some of these things we had done once or twice... yet I began to learn that these events/activities were important to the children and thus to the family.  So, if it was good and positive... I would go ahead and implement, thus forming a Tradition, thus solidifying our family identity and building needed strength and love.  Even when this "tradition" didn't last long... it still provided memories to share together.
This is the reason that, a few weekends ago, we used two nights of hotel points, left our visiting grandmother home alone (it's ok, she had friends come stay with her), and drove five hours each way... the end result was this photo:

This photo is part of a somewhat silly but cherished family tradition and here is our story:

Our first official family vacation was in 1992 when Nathan was about 9 months old.  Before that time, our vacation has consisted of returning to California to visit our parents.  By now I was working as an RN in the operating room at UVRMC, so although Mark was still a full time student, we had a little money for a hotel and gas to get us there.  We found places with refrigerators so that we could pack our food.  We drove to Durango, Colorado and went to Mesa Verde.  When we walked past the old-fashioned photo shop we both remarked how we had wanted to do these photos as children but neither of our parents would agree... then it dawned on us... we were grown up!  We could take have an old fashioned photo taken and wouldn't our little boy be happy about that when he was older?  And so it began.
Two years later we found ourselves at Lake Tahoe with Mark's family.  We took an afternoon off from the reunion to have a little family time and explore Silver City, Nevada.  Of course a tourist town like this would have a photo studio - and we had a new little Greg to be added to our picture, so we once again splurged.  Both of the boys were pretty excited to be holding guns, especially when Daddy had one also.

One of our best vacations was in May of 1997 when we borrowed Mark's parents' RV and drove around Idaho and Wyoming.  Here we are in Jackson Hole - we have to smile when we see this photo because the kind man that took it had really no idea what he was doing.  He was a disabled vet who was watching his sister's shop while she went to lunch.  He just said - go stand there and starting shooting (the photo, we were happily the ones holding guns once again).  In these days the photos were not digital and I think that when he came out of the developing room and saw how awful both shots had turned out, he just gave them both to us - we think he pocketed our money and never told his sister that we had been there...

By the time we drove to Edmonton, Canada in 1999 to visit Mark's parents who were living there as missionaries, we had begun to notice a pattern.  We were having a baby one summer and taking a family vacation the next summer - adding a new little baby each year.  The boys were none too pleased to be holding school books instead of guns, but Jackie was very happy to be wearing a long dress, and of course, this year we included Natalie who was just shy of her first birthday.  I believe that we were at Fort Edmonton.

A most memorable vacation in May of 2001 to Boston, Massachusetts.  We had enough frequent flyer miles to fly the whole family and hotel points for the week.  Our good friends, Nathan and Sarah Smith, were living there going to M.I.T. and they provided great food and acted as tour guides many times.  We saw a lot of American and Family History sites - combining them on this day as we visited Plymouth.  Where else can you dress as pilgrims?  Nowhere - I think that this shop was out of Cape Cod - we had just had a very long day and seen a lot - the boys missed their guns, but those little girls felt so pretty with their basket and flowers.  They never wanted to take off their costumes!  Here we have David at 10 months old.

Life got a little crazy by the time our sixth baby, Kimberly, arrived.  It looks like she is about two years old in this photo and we hadn't been on a vacation - at least not one with old fashioned photos.  We had moved from Oregon to Washington in July 2001, and this was 2004.  Everyone was happy with the Civil War theme as there were swords/guns for the boys and the girls were dressed up to be beautiful.  We like this one because our little one behaved very well, but wasn't thrilled to be wearing gloves.  You can see that she is taking one off while its pair is there on the floor already.  A fun moment to capture.


2006 and we are back on schedule for photos, but had no more babies to add.  Quite alright, we fill up the photo just fine.  Here we are in Deadwood, South Dakota.  We are dressed as a gang of outlaws.  We thought we should get back to our western theme to celebrate our location, but soon-to-be-8 yr old Natalie flat out refused to be anything but a cowboy.  Jackie refused to be anything but a lady in a pretty dress.  Kimberly wanted to hold a gun, so we decided to be a gang of outlaws.  Mom agreed to wear the dress for Jackie, but balance it out by wearing a cowboy hat and gun.  The momma of ruthless outlaws needs to be ready for anything...

Seaside, OR, 2008 - we saw these cute outfits when we came in 2004 and thought it would be a fun addition to our collection.  At this point our tradition had morphed from adding a baby to just taking a photo with a new theme every two years.  Thankfully there is a great little photo shop in Seaside and we looked forward to other events here such as renting one of those nightmare three-bench bikes.  It was fun the first time... but the second time... read on...
Back in Seaside in 2010 - we are scruffy, merciless pirates.  We took this just weeks before sending Nathan to the Philippines on his mission and sending Greg to the hospital for chemotherapy.  We realized that this might be the final time to have Nathan in our photos - and we decided to morph the tradition once again to counting down the children - that is, to take a photo each time a child leaves home.  For the record, this was our second bike rental and we happily headed down the street only to find out that it had no brakes...and I think there was a problem with the steering.  I just have an image of driving wildly past oncoming traffic into a curb to stop ourselves - not my favorite memory.
A bunch of wild Indians - that's us in 2012 as Greg prepares to serve as a Spanish speaking missionary in Oakland, CA.  This is not our favorite - but it is fun.  We are back in Seaside, and maybe this is the time that the brakes gave out - I don't know, it is all getting to be a blur of costumes and salt water taffy...  Therefore, for our final photo before Jackie leaves on her mission to Utah, we thought it worthwhile to drive the five hours to Leavenworth, Washington where we not only had the fun experience of seeing our men in Bavarian lederhosen, we ate some delicious German food - and here I will put in a plug for the Andreas Keller Restaurant - very authentic!

I was just thinking that the first time I ever saw an "old-fashioned photo" was when I was quite young... I probably have the memory all fuzzy, but it seems that it was at my parents' friends' home - perhaps the McNeals who lived up Poly Canyon?  I thought, even at a young age, that an old picture was very cool - and then to realize it was modern people... well, that was just magical to me.  It was probably 20 years later that I walked into the little shop in Durango, Colorado to get a picture of my own... and look at me now.
This is just one of our traditions - a rather unique one I think.  Just like us...

Salt and Honey in The Land of Enchantment

Next time we will need a
much larger U-Haul!

Shiprock, New Mexico – as we approached Shiprock I told Mark the story of my family’s experience in Shiprock almost 40 years ago… My parents had moved to Farmington, NM and when they heard there was a parade in Shiprock they thought that they would take the family to absorb some local culture. Well, it worked… I was nine years old and I recall the “Cuchina” dancers, but my parents remember that we were definitely a few grains of salt in a large pepper shaker – definitely the wrong ethnicity and not exactly welcomed. Oh well.
Yesterday it would appear that Shiprock had once again had a large parade – maybe they do this quite often. The traffic was horrific, but as we slowly made out way through town my mouth was watering over the many little stands selling Navajo tacos. Though we make them at home, I know that they are not as good as the ones I remember from my childhood in New Mexico. Therefore, when we came to a little gas station/café in a town called Cuba – we decided to order some Navajo tacos and frybread.

Delicious - but it burned!!

“Green or Red Chili,” the man was asking me – I asked which was the least hot…
“They are both hot,” was his reply – hmmmm.
“I guess I will take red”
“Red is hot!”
“Then I will take green.”
“Green is hot!”
“Please make mine without chili.”
….I got green. It was hot. We ordered to go and pulled over beside a little adobe Baptist church to eat. It was delicious, but hot. Too hot. We enjoyed a few bites and set them aside to eat the fry bread with some honey. I noticed that she had also added little packets of salt, probably to spice up the green chili, but I decided to add it to the honey on my fry bread (cheap honey packets aren’t too great) and was rewarded with a kettle-corn-like fry bread experience. Yummy as it was, Mark had spoken of some great sopapillas in Albuquerque so I only had a few bites. I guess I am going to have to get used to eating deep fried food if I am going to live in the South.

Sopapilla stuffed with
carne adovado - YUM!!
(Chili on the side - unused)
Mary & Tito's in
Albuquerque

Back to Farmington – watching the map as we drove through town I saw that we would be driving right past my old neighborhood and was so thrilled for a chance to check out the old house! We drove right to it – 1409 Camino Monte. Almost 40 years later and there are all the memories coming so clearly – we passed my friend Tanya’s home with the large addition in the back that my dad helped to build… there was the home that was robbed the same week as ours… the driveway that we weren’t allowed to rollerskate on even though their cement was so smooth… the neighbor’s house with the nice dad who saved us when we (the children) thought our house was on fire but it was only us burning up our treat in the oven… the Butler’s home where we lived while waiting to move to Wyoming… the Carlson’s home where I had my first babysitting jobs when I was 10 years old… and my house – missing the tree in front that I used to climb.

1409 Camino Monte - 2015

Bluffview Elementary

Camino Monte - 1977

We drove to Bluffview Elementary – on the way I saw the house where the lady told me that I was too old to trick-or-treat; though in reality I was just tall for my age – I was 9 years old and so mortified Inever went out trick-or-treating again… I saw the alley where someone had dumped old sheetrock and we would take pieces of it be chalk on the sidewalk… The school had changed of course… it was so much smaller than I remember… I saw the gym and remembered sitting at a before-school parent meeting with my mom being so shocked that we would be expected to bring our own school supplies because we had moved from Reno, Nevada where they had enough money to supply paper, pencils and other supplies for their students…. There was the library which made me remember the day that I had pretended to be sick in order to skip the all-school spelling bee. My friend and I had won our grade level and I was so afraid that I would win again and be sent to a larger spelling bee – the teachers made it sound fun, but to me it sounded like a nightmare. Then there was the playground... the fun get-your-wiggles-out equipment had all been replaced with colorful and safe yet boring places to play. They used to have rows of half-buried tires to do hurdle races and we even had a semi-circle of telephone poles buried on-end at different heights to jump between.  Someone had donated hundreds of giant tractor tires and they were creatively made into all sorts of play equipment.  There was an awesome piece of equipment called "The Spider" which entailed hanging on vey tights and being spun in the air - like a merry-go-round in the sky.  There was always a big line to play here - and usually one or two injuries each year... but even the injured kids were back in line as soon as permitted.  Poor modern children - There are schools in town have "no running" rules.  Really?!?  My teacher kept a shoebox of Indian pottery pieces that we would find at recess while digging around in the dirt. We could take them home if we wanted, but it was fun to see her collection grow also.  I suppose that would all be illegal now...  For the record, I had the same teacher for 4th and 5th grade - her name was Amaryllis Trujillo and she was amazing.  She is the teacher who introduced me to one of my all-time favorite books, The Hiding Place  by Corrie Ten Boom.
Wow – I was amazed at how the memories came flooding in. Life is so interesting. So many people with which to interact… so many experiences to shape and form who we are today.
And the Land of Enchantment… I am, indeed, enchanted. Driving through New Mexico was a beautiful adventure. The bluffs and free standing monoliths – different colors and shadows. I wanted to get out and explore so many places – enchanting is a great description for what we saw yesterday. Southern Utah is magnificent as always. As I type we are driving through Western Texas – it is flat and I find it invigorating. Big sky… the hills are beginning to roll now (typing while en route) and I am reminded of my roots in Central California. Driving out Friday through the Columbia River Gorge I knew it would be one of my last times to make that drive – the Gorge has intrigued me since I first saw it almost 23 years ago. It is no secret that the beauty of the northwest is intoxicating to me – but driving through the varied landscapes for the past three days reminds me that I simply love the earth. The variety is spectacular and I am grateful that my Father in Heaven has provided such a get-my-hands-dirty-and-have-fun-doing-it type of playground in which to live, love, laugh and learn!  He obviously loves us very, very much!!

10th Birthday on Camino Monte:

I found this photo of my 10th birthday party - we moved away the next year but I remember most of these girls... left to right - Lori, ?, Elizabeth Penrod, Andrea Nygren, Myself, JoAnne, Shirley, Nanette Nygren, ?, Patty Palmer.