A Few More Thoughts About Bentley's Mission Call...

So it's been over a week since Bentley got his call and I am still so excited for him!!!  The best thing was on Sunday when we chatted and he'd had a few days to process things and he was still over the moon about it, too.  Hu-Zzah!

Some of the things I'm most excited about:

-Since it's an American territory, it shouldn't be too hard to mail him stuff!

-He's only one hour off from us, which should make our weekly phone calls MUCH easier to schedule!

-Since he'll go to the MTC in Mexico, he'll still get a little experience that is actually foreign.  (He also needs to get a passport for this, which is sort of a pain, but I'm glad he'll have his passport now!)

(Side story: someone asked him if he was going foreign or not and he didn't know how to answer!  😂)

-He'll have to get to learn Spanish finally.  And he'll get to see how much better you can learn a foreign language when you a) have amazing teachers b) have the Spirit helping you and c) are dropped into that country and are suddenly both highly motivated to figure it out and being fully immersed in that language!

-His mission president was the COO of a company and has his MBA, so he's going to be a nice person for Bentley to begin networking with and learning from, if he's truly going to go into finance some day.

-The missionary couple serving there are friends with the mission president (he basically recruited them), so they're also probably great people to get to know!

-Craig found a video of the Puerto Rican missionaries welcoming new missionaries and singing "Called to Serve" and they were... a bit more raucous than we were on my mission?  But I think Bentley will enjoy this kind of energy.  It's good for him to not take himself too seriously!

-Now we have an excuse to go to the Puerto Rican Day Parade in NYC!  (Just kidding-- I've heard about what a nightmare that is-- there is no way we are EVER doing that!)

-I'm happy for him that he'll get to be somewhere warm!  Spending winter months knocking on doors is ROUGH.  I'm sure he'll be complaining about how hot he is and the rainy season will feel terrible.  But that has to be better than riding a bike in the snow!

And, the point I keep coming back to, but I'll say it one more time-- I'm just so pleased that he's excited.  That was really the thing I worried about the most, was that he would get his call and be disappointed by it.  That would have been tough for all of us, but especially for him.  My mama heart is thrilled to see her son so excited for this HUGE next step in his life!

At the Provo City Center temple (the same one Craig and I missed out on a few years ago!)

Called to Serve!

Bentley submitted his mission papers last week on Sunday.  The stake person who conducted his final interview told him he would probably get his call on Tuesday in a little over a week, or the Tuesday after that, so we were looking at the 4th or 11th of February.  And so the great wait began!  We were all completely freaking out!

And then, on Friday (Jan. 31st), as Craig and I were about to leave for the temple, Bentley texted us that he had a message from the Church.  He actually sent a screen shot of it with two texts that both read, "AHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" and then the calmer, "this is concerning to say the least"

We then had the following conversation:

I should point out that the previous Sunday when we'd talked on the phone, I'd tried to ask Bentley how he wanted to open his call-- did he just want to go to the temple and open it privately?  Did he just want family on the phone?  Did he want to zoom it and invite everyone?  I didn't really have a strong opinion about what he did, I just wanted him to decide so we could make sure it all went down the way he wanted it to!  I didn't want him to look back and be disappointed with the big moment!  But he was very evasive at the time.  

I'm pretty sure what he wanted was to know ahead of time how excited he'd be about his call, and then the more excited he was, the more people he would invite.  But obviously, there was no way to actually make that happen.  You just can't put that cart before the horse, no matter how hard you try.

But with that email, we were a freaking out mess with absolutely no plan!  So he FaceTimed us and we frantically gathered his siblings to hear and it was...  Just the church informing him that they'd set up an email account for him.  Whew.  It was a bit of a letdown, but we REALLY were not ready for his call to come just yet, so that was actually a good thing.  Craig and I breathed a sigh of relief and headed off to the temple and our date night as planned.

But fortunately, this little episode DID serve the purpose of lighting a bit of a fire under Bentley so he actually decided how to open his call: he wanted people there.  He wanted to do the whole "zoom with everyone" thing.  So Craig set up a link (and spent over an hour patiently explaining to his parents how to zoom), and I made a list of people to invite.  We figured we would be at the church for our Tuesday night activities, so we could just start out by letting all the youth watch him open his call and then move on to our activity.  Easy peasy!

(And, since we'll be driving home from Great Wolf Lodge the following Tuesday night, we really hoped it didn't come then!)

I had heard that the fact that his email was set up was a good sign that he'd probably be getting his call.  We were getting close!

So, naturally, on Monday evening as I was just leaving for choir, and my phone was packed away where I couldn't hear it, Craig came running out to catch me yelling, "HE GOT THE CALL!"  Apparently I'd been missing the following texts:

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!  I quickly sent out the email I'd started with the zoom link to everyone I could think of (apparently I missed TWO of my four sisters, though, so I did a terrible job!  If YOU wanted to see it and didn't get an email from me, I am SO SORRY).  We decided he'd open it in about an hour and just hoped that people would see the email in time.  Then I rushed to choir and explained to Michael before we began that I would need to duck out for a few minutes.  The 25 minutes I waited until it was time to step out were AGONY-- who can focus on warmups in a time like this???  I don't even know how Bentley stood it!

The minutes dragged by and finally it was time.  I stood out in the parking lot (thankful that it wasn't too cold of an evening) and got to witness the following:

https://zoom.us/rec/play/A0ERcARszGAImY6g3Oz-BN6iuyOQ80ziuXg6F9TP9Pt4fjVXzCwgWSNslzdUJldtZjsVEA3JfXNPvfUz.vmawEWi15CVc9h4S

(If you click on the link, you can see people's comments in the chat!)

The really pertinent information is around the 8:40 mark.  It's pretty hilarious, though, as he gets a minute into the whole thing only to be interrupted by some random person scream-singing in the distance (???) and when he looks back to his phone, he accidentally glances down and sees where he's going and just can't stop smiling.  

I didn't really care where Bentley went on his mission, but I desperately wanted HIM to be happy and excited about it.  In our ward, the last five missionaries we've sent out have served in: Fresno CA (Spanish speaking), Provo, UT (Spanish speaking), Provo, UT (English speaking), Layton, UT (English speaking) and Oklahoma City, OK (Spanish speaking).  And Bentley really didn't want to go to Utah, but the recent trends certainly seem to be to state-side missions.  Clearly, all of us Virginians need to show those Utahns how the Church is supposed to be done!   But yeah, he was really trying hard to manage his expectations.  

So, yes, you can see it in the video: when he finally saw where he was going-- Puerto Rico, Spanish speaking!!!-- he cannot stop grinning.  He's so happy and excited.  And I am therefore so happy and excited, too!  Also, now that there's no more surprise to not ruin, I should point out that CRAIG TOTALLY CALLED IT ON THE VIDEO (right at 4:30)!!!  Which is just hilarious because this wasn't something we'd ever talked about, and it had certainly never crossed my mind.  How did he do that?

Goodness.  What a whirlwind this has been!  

I have more thoughts, but I'll save them for my next post.  Give me a little more time to process the joy!

I can't believe my son is going to be a missionary!  In Puerto Rico!!!  I know they've seen a lot of hurricanes there, but they ain't seen NOTHING yet!

This and That, January Version

Compared to December, January was fairly tame.  We still had more going on than I would have liked, because all I really want to do in January is sit wrapped up in blankets by a fire.  Alas, life asks more of that than me.  Right now.  Maybe some day?

So here are the other things we had going on...

We had a youth temple trip, combined with the Spanish Branch!  That went really beautifully, I was so happy with our turnout!

This picture is mostly just the youth

And here we've added in the grown ups!

It was also Colton's first time doing baptisms at the temple, so that was happy!

That was in the late morning.  Tom and Donna had come over to babysit Camille, and we just barely had enough time to grab dinner at Five Guys and say happy birthday to Donna before we had to race to the stake center for Standards Night.  (In our defense, we'd planned our temple trip before we knew that the stake also had plans for us that day!)  Craig was hosting a panel discussion for the parents, and I sat and typed up notes on the whole thing, so we had a lot going on that day.  We were very relieved when we climbed into bed that night!

Our next-door neighbor's house suddenly went up for sale!  I shouldn't have been surprised since all the signs were there-- they'd been throwing away a TON of stuff, and having random cleaning people over (like professional grout and carpet cleaners-- that kind of thing).  Plus, as far as I can tell, they only have one son, and he lives in the Seattle area with his wife and kid, so what they're sticking around here for is anyone's guess.  But having said all that, I was still a little surprised when I saw the For Sale sign on their front lawn!  And what was even more shocking, the house sold in less than a week!  I've only knocked on their door a handful of times, but even from those brief interactions, it was immediately clear that someone in their house is a smoker.  Even with all the carpets and grout cleaned, who would buy that???

Anyway, I did look up their house on Zillow because I'm nosy like that.  Their house is a mirror image of our house, and it's fun to see what's the same and what's different (for example, their basement and bonus room over the garage are both unfinished!  I never knew that!).  It made me laugh as I looked at this birds eye view and realized you can see my big blue van parked next door!  😂

Bentley sent Kendra a song to listen to that Averi had liked.  And since Kendra also liked it, she looked up the singer on insta-gram and found this picture of her in concert:

and then, because she's a super-sleuth, Kendra looked even closer and spotted Bentley and Averi in the audience!

Both of them are... staring at their phones.  Of course...!

Kendra was also the one to notice that the snow melting on our trampoline looked a LOT like a yin-yang symbol, which I thought was pretty cool!

But speaking of Bentley-- my sister Natalie took her son Samuel out to BYU to audition for the music school, and while they were there, they took Bentley out to dinner!  I always appreciate people looking out for my boy!

And I love how Bentley and Samuel look related, but in a cousins-not-siblings way...  You see it, right?

I decided to see if I can pull off purple lipstick.  The consensus was: kinda?  I don't know that it's the best look on me, but it's fun to change things up every now and then!

Kind of a cross between emo and frostbite.  But not in the worst way...!

The Young Men had a wrestling activity last week and we got some fun pictures from it!  (The Young Women were busy on the other end of the building having a nerf battle, but I didn't think to take any pictures!)

Love this face that Ryder is pulling!  Craig said he actually did pretty well, especially considering he's never tried this before and was going against some kids who have been wrestling for years now!

None of the kids Colton's size showed up that night, so Craig paired himself with Colton.  He didn't trust any of the bigger kids to not hurt him...

And there's Ryder again!

Kendra's Indoor Drumline had a preview night, so we got to see her perform the first half of their show, "Don't Look Back," which is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  I'll be excited to see the rest in a few weeks!

And the entire 4th grade had a music night where they sang and danced for us, so that was fun!

Craig and I had a date night to the temple (where it was pouring, so we had to take our selfie under cover!) and then on to Chuy's for dinner!  It doesn't get a whole lot better than that!

We also had a really fun pizza night with Adam, his sister Christine, who was visiting from Utah, and the Holbeins!  Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures of that, either, but a wonderful time was had by all-- the pizza, cheesecake, AND focaccia bread were all delicious, Hazel was as cute as ever, Adam's sister was delightful, and I always enjoy a chance to hang out with Brittney.  So life was good!

On the way home, we stopped for a minute to appreciate all the stars you can see when you're a little further away from the bright lights of Charlottesville!  I tried to do this once before, about a year ago, and it turned out they'd been manuring the fields and the kids were too distracted by the smell to appreciate the stars.  This time they enjoyed them a LOT more, and I've gotten a bit more knowledgable thanks to my stargazing app, so I could point out all the planets that we were seeing (Venus, Jupiter, and Mars; Saturn was hiding out near the moon, but it wasn't bright enough to actually see) and all my favorite constellations (the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, and of course Orion's belt with Sirius following behind).  We didn't stand there for too long, but it still made me very happy!

The really bright star here is Jupiter, and the Pleiades are just up and to the right of it!

Full On Winter Mode

We began the year right by taking Bentley to the temple again!  This time it wasn't so early and I wasn't stressing about everything else going on in the day, and it was a much more relaxed and enjoyable time.  What a great thing to get to do!  (This coming Saturday we'll get to take *Colton to do baptisms for the first time, so it's an exciting year all around!)

We stopped at Five Guys afterwards to keep Bentley from starving.  That boy loves himself a hamburger!  And then we home and I think I took a nap?  The Smiths came over in the evening and we all went to Mission BBQ together, so we got a lot of meat that day!

This is a terrible picture and Craig really should give people more warning before he suddenly snaps pictures them in the middle of their meal, but I sort of love how both Tom and Camille are pulling the same face! 😂

The forces that be were predicting a HUGE snow storm to hit, which presented us with a problem: the snow was supposed to start at the same time that Bentley was flying out of Richmond, back to BYU.  I called Southwest to ask them about changing his flight and they told me that until they had issued a weather warning, they couldn't help me (or in other words-- I could change his flight, but I'd have to pay an arm and a leg for it).  When I told Bentley, his immediate response was, "Well it's not my fault if I fail all my classes then!"  This seemed a teensy bit dramatic, since he was flying Sunday evening and classes didn't even start until Wednesday.  But I could tell the whole thing was stressing him out.  So when, just a few hours later, Southwest did in fact issue a weather warning, we quickly changed his flight to Saturday morning.  

This was super lame, though, because it meant we lost two days that we were supposed to get to spend together!!!  I was really sad.  And then Craig took him to the airport and I stayed home taking down Christmas decorations, which did not cheer me up.  And then the next day, after Bentley was safe back at BYU, and the snow began to fall, we checked and his original flight left right on time, no problem.  What a waste!  So yes, I had to spend a few days being sad and missing Bentley.

Everyone was excited to claim their hugs before he left

Especially me

After church that Sunday (but before any hint of snow), Colton was ordained as a deacon!  Which meant the following Sunday, he got to help pass the sacrament for the first time!  So that was all very exciting and special.  He was trying to not show how nervous he was about the whole thing, but he kept asking questions and bringing it up, so I knew it was at the forefront of his mind.  Colton is my deep child!

All the people who help ordain him-- Br. Huff, Topher, Craig, (Colton,) and Sawyer

And then that night the snow did indeed begin falling!

There are few things as delightful as freshly fallen snow.  Craig, Kendra, and I stood outside watching and listening to the quiet for quite a while before we decided we were too cold and it was time to head back inside.  Then we snuggled down in our warm beds, alarms turned off, ready to wake up to a winter wonderland!

It was honestly a bit of a disappointment, though.  All we got were three inches, and after a day it was all crusted over ice and terrible.  But then-- THEN-- it's been FREEZING ever since so it's still here, nearly two weeks later!  Which is the WORST.  

Cold little chickens!

It hasn't been all bad: the kids had a great time sledding in it, and I enjoyed staying home and warm.  They even ended up organizing have the kids in the ward go to the Snow's farm and sled down their huge hill!

Terrible picture, but that's Ryder up front with Sawyer behind him

And Kendra with Ember

The whole gang!  (I stayed home from this-- we couldn't get the van out of the driveway and Kendra was going to be wearing my snow pants.  And I was pretty happy to stay home by myself and stay warm!)

I really try to not share videos on the blog too often, but this one is so funny--watch Gideon's boot go flying at the end!!!  It's like a cartoon!

School got canceled for the entire week, which was pretty awesome.  On one of the days, I made the kids watch Fantasia with me.  I warned them that it was kind of weird and boring, and with a preface like that, they actually quite enjoyed it.  Who doesn't love ballerina hippos dancing with crocodiles???

But-- oof-- going back to school this week has been rough.  And it's still so cold and icy.  When I was walking Camille to the bus stop yesterday morning, it was 17℉.  That's just gross.  Trying to get back into a routine of exercising early is also awful.  I keep trying to remind myself that I'd rather be out running when it's in the twenties than when it's in the eighties!  Right?  Ah, Virginia, you beast!

Craig got this sunrise with the full moon.  So wintry!!!

Notice those six stars all in a row?  Are those the droids everyone is freaking out about?  I mean-- they definitely weren't actually stars, since that's not a constellation AND after I took the picture, they all headed off east and vanished.  What the hey???

*In fact, it was Colton who pointed out that his life has been echoing Bentley's a LOT this last year-- Bentley graduated from high school and went on to college, Colton graduated from 5th grade and went on to middle school; Bentley received the Melchizedek Priesthood and went through the temple and is getting ready for his mission, Colton received the Aaronic Priesthood and can go to the baptistry and just got to pass the sacrament for the first time!  So those are some pretty fun parallels!

And That's a Wrap on December!

It was so nice to have nothing planned for the day after Christmas!  Bentley and Kendra decided to go shopping at Target.  My parents and I decided to have lunch at Torchy's and then Bentley, Kendra, and Craig joined us, and we had a lot of fun hanging out and gorging ourselves on chips and queso!  Yum.

My parents flew back home Friday, and I was sad to see them go.  It was really nice getting to spend Christmas with them again-- it had been a very long time!  I was glad I asked demanded that they come!  (Middle children quickly learn that sometimes it pays to be the proverbial squeaky wheel!)

We had a lot of time just hanging around-- Colton was working hard on his lego sets, we played some of our new games (I liked Poetry for Neanderthals), we watched shows we hadn't gotten around to seeing yet...

Craig managed to take a decent picture of Bentley for his mission papers:

Who could slam the door on this fine young man?  Oh, right, everybody!

Craig finally finished baking treats and we spent a couple evenings delivering them to friends (and feeling bad for all the friends we didn't manage to give treats to).  Near one of the houses we saw an owl sitting in the road, so that was about the coolest thing ever!  (We also saw a fox, some deer, and a mouse that same trip, so it was quite the evening for nature!)  I think we delivered fifteen plates, and there were still so many people we would have liked to have given treats to!

Adam wasn't home when we stopped by his house, so I took a picture to prove we'd left him stuff, just in case the bear was around and got to it first!  What a festive little plate!  (He sent us a picture back of just the crumbs, admitting it was embarrassing how fast he and Allen polished it off.  We suggested they lie and let the bear take the blame!)

Despite trying to carefully pace himself, Colton finished the Hogwarts Castle within a week!

More hanging out time!  Notice that Kendra is in DIFFERENT plaid pajama pants this time, though!

We'd asked our friends, the Gaskins, if they'd be willing to host a New Year's Eve party for the youth, and they did it so enthusiastically!  I'm so glad we have such fun people in our ward!

They started out making pizza quicks and snacking

Ryder and I managed to be matching this time!

And then played the tenzi/saran wrap game where you pass around a huge ball of saran wrap and try to get the prizes out of it before the person in front of you can roll doubles

Colton got the final prize which everyone was excited about because they'd heard it was ten dollars-- only to discover that it was Canadian money!  😂

That game took WAY longer than Amy had thought it would-- they were supposed to have a new activity every half hour, but I think that used up at least three of those slots!  Amy kept suggesting they move onto something else, but the kids were DETERMINED to get all the prizes!  It was kind of hilarious.  Anyway, next we did a slideshow of all the activities the youth had done throughout the year, and that was a pretty awesome review-- we've had a lot of fun all together!

Once the slideshow finished, I slipped outside to sit by the fire and read my book for a few minutes.  I needed a short break from all the noise and from being "on."  Craig had started making Oreo truffles and put Olivia and Sabrina in charge of finishing those:

And suddenly it was midnight!  Amy dropped balloons on everyone, they all had noisemakers and confetti and those party popper things...  It was VERY loud and I was glad I'd taken a few minutes to escape before that!  But it was nice to see everyone having such a fun time!

Chaos!

Jason, Colton, and Gideon-- three of the newest deacons!

I LOVE that Amy did this!!!

Gotta love a good photobomb!

Afterwards, Amy sent me a screenshot she'd grabbed from the top of the stairs-- Craig and I are totally busted!

It was as good a way to start out the new year as any I've ever had-- I so appreciate the Gaskins and how they make everything so fun!  And after all the craziness we'd had before Christmas, that last week felt like a perfect mix of not-too-much, but what we did have going on was really great!

Welcome, 2025!