Wondering Who

Ok, I've recovered from that Unexpected Meltdown. Mark is so good to me.

Anyway........ I've been thinking about this kid--a lot. And, one of my favorite things to think about is WHO is this kid going to look like? Mark and I looked NOTHING alike as babies. I was round and brown (where that "brown" went, I'll never know). Mark was slim and white.

I think as adults, Mark and I look good together. But, as babies, we couldn't be more different.

What do you think? Who do you think this kid is going to look more like?

An Unexpected Meltdown

Yesterday morning, I woke up upset. I really did.

The alarm clock went off. Mark scooted over and immediately started spooning me. All I wanted was for him to get off me: he was too hot and I didn't want to be spooned. However, I didn't tell him that because I figured I would eventually want him to spoon me anyway. Not so.

Then we get up out of bed and I just didn't want to share the bathroom with him. I didn't tell him that either.

He fixed me pancakes for breakfast--because he is seriously the awesomest husband ever. And I totally wanted pancakes.

But when I went out to have breakfast with him, everything he did and said just drove me nuts. It made me mad and/or it made me sad. Like, I said something and, as usual, he acted silly and ran to the "sad corner." Only, he wouldn't knock it off when I told him to come back to the table and get out of the sad corner. It made me mad.

A few minutes later, he tried to kiss me, only he was holding my neck in the back so hard I couldn't hardly lift my head--so he pretend pouted that I didn't want to kiss him.

That was it. That was the last straw. I told him to "STOP" because I just wasn't in the mood to be teased. And then the waterworks came.

I started crying. As in--huge tears. And not just one. It was a bunch of tears. And I couldn't stop them.

Mark's eyes were suddenly sad and I knew that I had made him feel bad--but I REALLY didn't mean to. I couldn't stop the tears.

I had told him earlier that I had woken up feeling upset. So when these tears came on he asked if I had a bad feeling about something. I told him no--that I didn't know why I was feeling upset.

Poor Mark.

I love him so much and I felt so bad that I freaked him out. Honestly--it freaked me out too. I've never burst into tears before for no good reason. And I couldn't stop the tears from coming either.

I told my bosses and coworkers that I had burst into tears at breakfast. One of my bosses throughout the day kept saying stuff like, "Oh, I better be careful, or I might make you cry." Not exactly what I wanted and/or needed to hear.

I just felt crappy yesterday. The confusing thing to me is I went to bed happy Tuesday night. Mark and I had had a great night together. So, all day yesterday, Mark would send me chat messages asking me how I was doing. Yah, I really freaked him out unintentionally--with no apparent reason.

But, when I got home from work last night--Mark met me at the door. He had ended up going home early because of his court schedule. He had dinner all made: pork chops (sooooooo yummy), a green salad, mixed vegetables, and a fruit drink. AND--he had a bouquet of various white flowers sitting on the counter. Totally what I needed!

An hour or so later, when I finally went into the bedroom, I found a SECOND bouquet of flowers on the dresser! Various red and yellow flowers.

Mark has surprised me with two bouquets before; that time I ran out of the bedroom and smothered him with kisses. Last night, however, I just walked out to smother him with kisses. He pointed out the difference in pace between the two times--I reminded him that I don't really run any more as I am preggo.

THANKS MARK! (Sorry I freaked you out.) I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!

Shelley's Traditional Wedding

This past weekend, Mark and I went down to Window Rock, Arizona, to my cousin’s traditional Navajo wedding. She married her husband legally last summer in Las Vegas. But, my aunt and uncle wanted her to have something nicer, something more meaningful. So, they set to work, starting this Easter (that’s when they first decided to do the traditional ceremony) to get everything together.

Friday
The drive from our house is about 8.5 hours, give or take. We got there Friday evening in time to help load tables and chairs from the LDS chapel for use at the reception. Then we drove out to my grandma’s house, where the wedding and reception were to take place on Saturday.

My parents got there on Wednesday and spent all day helping set things up on Thursday. They put up this HUGE tent—the family rented. It’s a revival tent, if you know how big those are. Kind of reminded me of Dumbo. There was no floor, just the red dirt of the reservation.

We finally had a family dinner that night about 10:00. Yah, 10:00. My poor belly. It was burgers, hot dogs, and some roast pork. While we were waiting for everyone to gather, my brother and his wife finally broke the news: they are expecting a baby boy in November. NOVEMBER! They’re five months prego and they managed to keep it a secret that long!

I must admit, it was rather funny—because of us were whispering to each other, “Is Leigh pregnant? She sure looks pregnant.” Yah, now that I know the signs (after experiencing them myself), I would have bet money—and I would be a rich woman today.

We’re quite excited for them. That now makes my list of 2009 babies at a grand total of 71. Amazing.

Saturday
Saturday morning, Mark, McKayla, and I had breakfast with my friend, Rodney. Rodney was one of my two best friends out in DC. He worked in the NNWO with me. He’s so funny. I’m glad Mark and Rodney finally got to meet each other.

After breakfast, Mark, Anthony, Leigh, McKayla, and I went to the local flea market. The flea market in Window Rock is nothing compared to the one in Gallup. I’ve had friends try to tell me the flea market in Shiprock is the best. But, I’ve been there and the one in Gallup is the best. Definitely.

I had described it to Mark as a giant garage sale, with some good deals on jewelry. He now believes me. Sadly, we bought nothing. But, Anthony got a really sweet leather bracelet.

We went back to the motel to change into our slightly nicer clothes. A few years ago, Mom made me two traditional Navajo dresses. One of them is turquoise satin. The other one, the one I wore this weekend, is white crushed velvet—stretchy. I let my little sister borrow my sash belt and my concho belt. I wasn’t about to wear a belt with my belly as it is.

Mom did my hair in the traditional tsiiyééł, the Navajo bun. I like when my mom does my hair like that. She had a harder time than usual Saturday because of my recent hair cut. But, she managed it anyway.


When we got to Grandma’s, they were still setting things up. Zoiks! They had to try and get hay bales into the chaha’oh for people to sit on. The chaha’oh was an 8-sided arbor made from stripped juniper logs and leafy oak branches. Uncle Darrell, my cousin Tom, and Tom’s friends made the chaha’oh special for the wedding. I’m sure it took them a LONG time. But, it was very nice. The east side was open. All other sides were covered with the oak branches.


I helped (as much as I could) Shelley (the bride), my mom, my sister, and other aunts get ready. All of us wore traditional. Shelley had a white rug dress. It was beautiful. She looked great.

At 2:00, JD (the groom), his escort, and his family, came in from the road. It’s about a mile from the road to Grandma’s house. JD and his escort (in this case, one of my uncles) rode in on horses. He was supposed to have another of my uncles ride in with him, but the third horse never showed up. So, JD and his family and friends came in a little parade to the chaha’oh. JD was wearing his Marine dress blues. (That was where JD and Shelley met: the Marines.)

While we (the bride and the bride’s family) were still inside Grandma’s house, JD and his family went in the chaha’oh. JD sat on the west side and his family sat by him on the north side.

Finally! we were ready to go out. Shelley carried the Navajo wedding basket filled with corn mush. Shelley sat on the right hand of JD on the west side and all of Shelley’s family sat on the south side. Those who could not fit in the chaha’oh were outside on the east side so they could see and hear what was going on inside.


I’ve done a little reading online to see about the riding in from the road. I haven’t found much, other than it’s traditional. I also found a few things that said the bride and groom were supposed to wash each other’s hands. Either I wasn’t paying attention—or they didn’t do that.

The next thing that happened was a ceremonial chant. The medicine man, who happens to be married to Shelley’s grandma, started it. There were some in the chaha’oh who knew the chant, so they sang along. We were told later that the chant was a washing away of past wrongs and boyfriends/girlfriends. It was a chant for a new beginning. I found this online—and I’m guessing that it’s probably what they were chanting:


Navajo Wedding Blessing – translator unknown

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth for the other.
Now there is no room for loneliness,
for each of you will be [a] companion to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is [but] one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon this earth.

While they were chanting, the medicine man was putting corn pollen on the basket of corn mush. If I remember correctly, he started at the east and made a circle going clockwise. Oh yah, and the corn mush was made, as we were told, from 12 different types of corn.


When Shelley and JD were finished eating, JD’s family, starting with his mother, were invited to go up to the couple and eat from the basket. After JD’s family, Shelley’s family, and then friends were invited. This symbolized the family and friends honoring the couple, the couple sharing their things (meals) with their families, and when a couple would go up together, a renewing of that couple’s wedding vows. Mark and I went up together.


The bishop from the ward Shelley’s parents go to came in and helped with the exchanging of rings.

And finally, the medicine man had those of us who knew the hymn sing, “I Am a Child of God.” He had told Shelley and the families earlier that morning (when he was providing them instructions on the traditions) that he would like Darrell and LaVern’s religion to be part of the ceremony as well. So, my family (the Ralph Worthens) and many of the local friends (like friends from the ward and the missionaries) sang together.

That was the ceremony, the wedding.


After the wedding, we all gathered in the giant revival tent for the reception. The bride’s family fed everyone really well! We had mutton stew, chili (real chili, spicy and everything), fry bread, tortillas (the Navajo way), roast beef, green salad, marshmallow/fruit salad, potatoes, and corn. Delicious.


Shelley and JD cut the cake. Of course they had a cake! I don’t know who made it, but it was nice and LARGE.

Did I mention it was HOT. Well, it was. And, I was wearing a heavy material. And, it was long sleeves. But, I felt pretty and I was glad that I wore it. It made me happy.


I really wanted a nice picture or two of all of Shelley’s family who was dressed up—that would be pretty much my aunts, my sister, our grandma, Shelley’s grandma, and me. But, I didn’t get it. I got close. Only a couple of them changed out of their skirts before I got it.

Mark was a super help again, like he was at Girls Camp. He helped my dad whenever he could, he helped Darrell whenever he could, and he was my camera man. He really is the best. I’m glad HE’S the one that I got to marry.

I made Mark wear a cowboy hat. He looks really good in a cowboy hat. He’s my cowboy.


We finally got out of there about 7:00. We didn’t stick around to help put things away. I was really tired. And stiff again. The rest of the night, we just relaxed. Well, other than the few minutes we took to go to Basha’s to buy some milk and doughnuts for breakfast.

Sunday
We went to church only long enough for sacrament meeting. We needed to check out by 11:00, and we wanted to be on the road by then anyway.

I got to see a couple of my friends at church too: Monika and Candy. I haven’t seen Candy since she got married and I haven’t seen Monika since March. Candy is from there and was up for the weekend. Monika is living there—but she’s moving to Wisconsin in a few weeks.

We got home (to West Valley) about 8:00. It was a long, long trip back. And with the pain in my back that I am currently experiencing, parts of the trip were miserable. But—I would do it again, definitely.


References
In case you’re wondering about how other Navajo traditional weddings go, these are the websites where I found some information:
http://www.gallupindependent.com/2005/nov/111905spnvwd.html
http://spas.about.com/library/blank091000pics9.htm
http://carolyndave.blogspot.com/2009/07/traditional-navajo-wedding-ceremony-7.html
http://www.geocities.com/tiffany_aldrich/pages/wedding_info.htm

Is There Hope for the American Marriage?

This is a recent article from Time Magazine. I have highlighted in yellow the things that were the most profound to me.

By Caitlin Flanagan, Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Around the time of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I turned to my father at the dinner table one night and said, "It's amazing, Dad — 50 years, and you never once had an affair. How do you account for that?"

He replied simply, "I can't drive."

Watching the governor of South Carolina cry like a little girl because his sexy e-mails got forwarded to his local newspaper, the State, made me wonder whether the real secret to a lasting marriage lies in limiting your means of escape. Whether you're putting the Buick Regal in reverse or hitting Send on a love note, you're busting out of your marriage, however temporarily, and soon enough there will be hell to pay. (See pictures of couples married for 50 years.)

During the press conference in which he admitted his affair, Mark Sanford warbled that he had broken "God's law," a sentiment that served only to emphasize the narcissism that had gotten him in trouble. Wrestling with God's law had apparently been the subject of many sessions of his Bible-study group, a seminar that may have spent a little too much time on the Song of Solomon, given Sanford's e-mailed encomium of his lover's physique: "I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night's light." Finally a bit of prose that makes us long for the clinical precision of the Starr report. Sanford told reporters the affair had begun "very innocently," which reveals that he still hasn't been honest with himself about the willfulness of his actions. When a married man begins a secret, solicitous correspondence with a beautiful and emotionally needy single woman, he has already begun to cheat on his wife.

Just a week before, another blue-blazered elected official — Senator John Ensign of Nevada — was forced to make a similar confession, although he left God out of it, which must have been a nice break for the Almighty. Ensign had done "the worst thing" in his entire life, he confessed: "I violated the vows of my marriage." The mood on both occasions was funereal; it might have been touching to see two such buttoned-up guys welling with tears if the corpses weren't their political careers.

The one thing both men refused to admit was that, back in the heyday of these affairs, they must have been having a blast. These were two middle-aged, conservative Republican men who had said, To hell with being part of the Cialis generation (midlife sexuality depicted as an aging husband and wife reclining in ... side-by-side bathtubs? What is the drugmaker worried about — that randy Pa might jump in Ma's bath and break her hip?). Their actions were so willful and blatantly self-centered that the two of them could have credibly fashioned themselves as rebels, possibly even as heroes, if they could have just stopped crying. They weren't a couple of tools stuck in sexless marriages and making up for it with Internet porn. These guys had embarked on dangerously erotic rampages with real-life, unencumbered women, women who decidedly weren't ... Jenny and Darlene. The long-suffering wives, Fun Busters in Chief.

In the e-mails exchanged between the governor and his girlfriend, they trip over themselves to praise the other's virtues. She was "special and unique," "glorious"; he was a man of emotional generosity who "brought happiness and love to my life." These two humanitarians were engaged not only in worshipping each other's high-mindedness but also in destroying another woman's home, hobbling her children emotionally and setting her up for humiliation of a titanic proportion. The squalor and pain that resulted from the Sanford and Ensign midlife crises make manifest a bleak truth that the late writer Leonard Michaels once observed in his journal: "Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another."

And so two more American families discover a truth as old as marriage: a lasting covenant between a man and a woman can be a vehicle for the nurture and protection of each other, the one reliable shelter in an uncaring world — or it can be a matchless tool for the infliction of suffering on the people you supposedly love above all others, most of all on your children.

In the past 40 years, the face of the American family has changed profoundly. As sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes in a landmark new book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today, what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of "frequent marriage, frequent divorce" and the high number of "short-term co-habiting relationships." Taken together, these forces "create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country."

An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner — this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%.

How much does this matter? More than words can say. There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers' financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation's underclass.

The Marriage Gap

The poor and the middle class are very different in the ways they have forsaken marriage. The poor are doing it by uncoupling parenthood from marriage, and the financially secure are doing it by blasting apart their unions if the principals aren't having fun anymore.

The growing tendency of the poor to have children before marriage — the vast majority of unmarried women having babies are undereducated and have low incomes — is a catastrophic approach to life, as three Presidents in a row have tried to convince them. Bill Clinton's welfare-to-work program encouraged marriage, George W. Bush spent millions to promote marriage, and Barack Obama has spoken powerfully on the need for men to stay with their children: "We need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one."

The reason for these appeals to lasting unions is simple: on every single significant outcome related to short-term well-being and long-term success, children from intact, two-parent families outperform those from single-parent households. Longevity, drug abuse, school performance and dropout rates, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration — if you can measure it, a sociologist has; and in all cases, the kids living with both parents drastically outperform the others.

Few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home. "As a feminist, I didn't want to believe it," says Maria Kefalas, a sociologist who studies marriage and family issues and co-authored a seminal book on low-income mothers called Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. "Women always tell me, 'I can be a mother and a father to a child,' but it's not true." Growing up without a father has a deep psychological effect on a child. "The mom may not need that man," Kefalas says, "but her children still do."

This turns out to be true across the economic spectrum. The groundbreaking research on the effects of divorce on children from middle- and upper-income households comes from a surprising source: a Princeton sociologist and single mother named Sara McLanahan, who decided to study the fates of these children with the tacit assumption that once you control for income, being part of a single-parent household does not adversely affect kids. The results — which she published in the 1994 book Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps — were surprising. "Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent," she found, "are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parents' race or educational background."

The consequences for more-affluent kids tend to be far less devastating than for poor ones; they are less likely to become teenage parents and high school dropouts. But children of divorced middle-class parents do less well in school and at college compared with underprivileged kids from two-parent households. "There's a 'sleeper effect' to divorce that we are just beginning to understand," says David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. It is an effect that pioneering scholars like McLanahan and Judith Wallerstein have devoted their careers to studying, revealing truths that many of us may find uncomfortable. It's dismissive of the human experience, says Blankenhorn, to suggest that kids don't suffer, extraordinarily, from divorce: "Children have a primal need to know who they are, to love and be loved by the two people whose physical union brought them here. To lose that connection, that sense of identity, is to experience a wound that no child-support check or fancy school can ever heal."

Put a Ring on It

That prompts the question, Does the father have to actually be married to the mother of his children to have a positive effect on them?

"Not if he behaves exactly like a married man," says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. If a man is willing to contribute 70% of his income to the child's upbringing, dedicate himself around the clock to the child's well-being and create a stable home life — a home life that includes his actually living there with mother and child — he might be able to give his child the boon of fatherhood without having to tie the knot. But that rarely happens. When children are born into a co-habiting, unmarried relationship, says Rector, "they arrive in a family in which the principals haven't resolved their most basic issues," including those of sexual fidelity and how to share responsibilities. Let a little stress enter the picture — and what is more stressful than a baby? — and things start to fall apart. The new mother starts to make wifelike demands on the man, and without the commitment of marriage, he is soon out the door.

Poignantly, the one thing that unites the poor and the middle class in their hopes for family life is the imperishable dream of being married forever, grabbing hold of the golden ring of lasting partnership. The low-income mothers studied by Kefalas and co-author Kathryn Edin spoke repeatedly of their wish to get married; they "cherish marriage and hold it to an impossibly high standard," the authors found, but too often forgo it as a result. Meanwhile, the middle class has spent the past 2½ decades — during which the divorce culture became a fact of life — turning weddings into overwrought exercises in consumer spending, as if by just plunking down enough cash for the flower girls' dresses and tissue-lined envelopes for the RSVP cards, we can somehow improve our chance of going the distance. Think of the touching moments on Inauguration Night, when at ball after ball, crowds of young people swooned at the sight of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing together, artlessly but sincerely and clearly with great affection. They are an immensely appealing couple, and it was a historic night, but what we saw reflected in the faces of those awed young people — and in the country's insatiable appetite for photographs of the First Family's private life — was wonder at the sight of a middle-aged man and woman still together, still in love.

We want something like that for ourselves; we recognize that it is something of great worth, but we are increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice to get there. The Obamas, for example, are enjoying their time of family closeness after almost two years of enforced separation, an interlude that would have caused many less committed couples to turn in their cards and give up. A lasting marriage is the reward, usually, of hard work and self-sacrifice.

The Ballad of Jon and Kate

Last summer, I had an opportunity to find out how meaningful the "in sickness and in health" clause of the marriage vows is when I underwent six rounds of chemotherapy, during which my husband treated me with great kindness. I began strong, making it to the dinner table every night and putting up a brave front for our children. But chemo, she will beat you down. I spent the last week on a friend's bedroom floor, heavily drugged, mildly nauseated and watching Jon & Kate Plus 8.

Ideal viewing conditions, as it turns out. I grew fond of the titular characters, in particular Kate, who seemed to stand like a colossus over their Pennsylvania tract home, constantly corralling and cajoling her uncountable — and, to the layperson, indistinguishable — children into doing relatively simple things, each of which became a hellish exercise in the improbable simply because of the logistics. Sixteen little shoes had to be found and tied before the family could even leave the house. That they weren't a pack of barefoot shut-ins was a testament to Kate's indomitable will.

Lying on the floor, drifting in and out of consciousness, I would gaze up at her and feel strangely comforted, the way you do around a certain kind of bossy, sexless power mom. The show approximated family life exactly: it was mostly good-natured and often boring and centered on the most basic transactions of daily existence — getting everybody dressed and fed, cleaning up, keeping quarrels to a simmer, not a boil. Now and then — in moments that genuinely did seem unscripted — Kate would wilt, leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee and seeming, for the twinkling of an eye, as though she were allowing herself to absorb the shock of it all. But then she would shake it off, plow forward, harass Jon into making himself a lower-calorie lunch and go back to wiping down the counters and giving orders.

Even though it was gimmick-filled reality television, there seemed to be a bit of actual — even profound — truth in it. The underlying premise was that Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage was an enterprise dedicated not to making themselves happy but to taking care of the cavalcade of children they had produced, that they were laboring at something more significant than their own pleasure.

I got well, I went home, and I pretty much forgot about Jon and Kate until a few weeks ago, when they catapulted to the forefront of trash culture because they were — according to the tabloids — separated. I assumed it was a rumor, but it turned out to be true. Jon had gotten bored with being bossed around by Kate, he'd had a fling with a 23-year-old teacher, and the couple had filed for divorce. He still loved the kids, he said — with complete guilelessness, as though loving the kids and doing right by them were unrelated events: "I have a new chapter in my life. I'm only 32 years old. I really don't know what's going to happen." And of course, the Gosselins command more attention now that their union is broken than they did when it was intact.

America's obsession with high-profile marriage flameouts — the Gosselins and the Sanfords and the Edwardses — reflects a collective ambivalence toward the institution: our wish that we could land ourselves in a lasting union, mixed with our feeling of vindication, or even relief, when a standard bearer for the "traditional family" fails to pull it off. This is ultimately self-defeating. It is time instead to come to terms with both our unrealistic expectations for a happy marriage and our equally unrealistic beliefs about the consequences of walking away from the families we build.

The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren't many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.

Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives — that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.

Who is left to ensure that these kids grow up into estimable people once the Mark Sanfords and other marital frauds and casual sadists have jumped ship? The good among us, the ones who are willing to sacrifice the thrill of a love letter for the betterment of their children. "His career is not a concern of mine," says Jenny Sanford. "He'll be worrying about that, and I'll be worrying about my family and the character of my children." What we teach about the true meaning of marriage will determine a great deal about our fate.

1st Year in Review

I made the following video for Andrea of our first year together.



Can I tell you--Mark is the best! This was a total surprise!!!!

Girls Camp 2009

Yesterday, as I was walking back to my desk, one of my bosses yells across the floor: "You've hit the waddling stage now!"

Thanks.

I needed that.

Not really. Actually, I'm still pretty sore from Girls Camp. But, it's a happy sore.

Mark and I went to Girls Camp last Wednesday. Why did Mark go? Because the stake YW presidency asked him to be a priesthood holder up there on the mountain. We needed a few good men in case of emergency--and to lug stuff around for us.

Mark was amazing. I mean, he really was. He helped me any time I needed him. He helped the stake any time the stake needed him. And, he helped our ward any time our ward needed him. He was so much fun and all the girls loved him.

As a stake leader, I was asked to visit each of the wards for one meal while I was up there. Mark was my meal buddy. He made me so happy when he made it a point to try and get to know the names of the girls and their leaders. He would ask each of them to tell their name, one thing they like to do in general, and one thing that they liked so far about that day--no repeats. It was wonderful.

So many of the girls--and even leaders--said that this was the best camp that they had ever been to. They said that they enjoyed the split between ward time and stake time. They said that they enjoyed the activities. And, they said that they learned a lot. All of these comments were things that we were hoping for.

I'm sore because most everything was on a hill. I either had to climb up or walk down. I also carried a lot of things. Did I sleep well? Oh yes--when I slept. I went to bed late and got up early every day. But, I slept very well.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Our camp theme was "Survivor: High on a Mountaintop."
• We made a girl (and the last night a priesthood holder) from each ward participate in a "challenge" each night at Tiki Time. These challenges included eating "raw fish" (Swedish fish), eating "bugs" (candy and bug-shaped cookies), and the "fluffy bunny" challenge (marshmallows).
• We sang a lot of great songs.
• Mark and I emceed the skits on Friday morning--only we were Cletus and Clareese. It was brilliant.
• Mark let the girls do his hair.
• We took our ward on a "Faith Hike."
• Lots, and lots, and lots of laughing.
• Our ward sported our tie-dyed t-shirts. I even wore one.

A Photo Shoot Give-away

A friend from Ferron loves to take pictures. She's not professional--as in doesn't have all that fancy equipment and stuff. But, she's got a great eye for great photos. I love looking at her pictures.

She's starting a side business for her photography. She's doing it all for MEGA CHEAP prices. I'm totally on-board with that.

AND--she's giving her first "business" photo shoot away. I want to win that!

Here's the link. You can check out her style and her prices (you'll be excited too!).