Missing Utah - suprise, suprise

I never thought that I would be saying this, but I really miss Utah. Not so much the state, as the people in the state. Some of my closest friends from college, my mission, and traveling, still live there and I miss them so much. I have been thinking a lot about Utah lately, since this week I have 2 friends getting married there, and a bunch of family members there celebrating with my sister-in-law, who finalized the adoption of her twins this last week. All week I have been wishing I could be there, visiting with all my friends and celebrating with them.
Today I received an email from an old roomate, sharing news about another roomate. Unfortunately her news was not happy. Now more than ever, I wish I was in Utah, and could be there to support a good friend, who is so strong and full of faith, much more than I could ever be.
For 2 years I was lucky to have amazing roomates. We all met in Jerusalem, where we were studying, came back and became roomates and friends. Two more good friends moved into our apt. I miss these girls so much. I laughed so hard, was helped so much, and learned so much from their example.


I miss my friends so much right now. Arizona is feeling much lonelier now that the weather is getting too hot to go outside. I wish that I lived closer to my good friends, and I wish that it was easy to find friends as good as those I made during college.

Rachel and her Children

Until having a baby last August, I was working as a teacher here in Mesa. Teaching was an eye-opener to me in many ways - boy, was I unprepared. I had no idea what sort of crazy experiences I was in for (crazy parents, really crazy administration, phone calls all hours of the day, night, and way-to-early morning). I could devote an entire blog just to the stories I could tell from 2 years of teaching at an insane charter school. But, that is off the point of this entry. One thing I was unprepared for was the economic situations of some of my students, mainly students whose families had been homeless. I was unprepared and at a loss on how to help students who were struggling with the depression and anxiety that comes with homelessness. I didn't know what to say to the student who begged me not to call their parent and tell her to come pick her up (the student had the flu), because they were afraid that the parent would lose their job for having to leave work, and terrified because that job was the only thing keeping them off of the streets. I was unprepared when a student's previous teacher told me that the student would be more effective in class if I brought a box of cereal and kept it at the school and gave the student breakfast before school started. Apparently the student generally only received food during the free school lunch offered, and would not eat again until school lunch the next day.

These students made me think more about homelessness than I ever have before. Generally when you think of homeless people on the street, you think of adults, not children. So when my friend's blog listed a quote from the book Rachel and her Children; Homeless Families in America, by Jonathan Kozl, I went to the library and checked it out.

The statistics in this book shocked me, particularly since this book was written in the 80's, and I have to assume that the statistics are even worse now. At the time this book was written, small children were the fastest growing sector of homeless - in certain states 3/4 of the homeless were families with young children.

I think about the things I worried about in the 5th grade, and the worries my students had, and it makes me scared to raise kids. I hate the fact that there are children out there worried about where they will sleep that night, what they will eat, and how their family will survive.

Speaking of kids, mine just woke up, so I am going to end this post and recommend this book to anyone looking for something to read.

Oregon Tulip Festival

Baby Shower

Isaac says this has to be some form of child abuse, putting an enormous pink bow on a baby boy's head. Personally I say it is the natural consequence of Eli going with me to my sister's baby shower, where there was an abundance of bows and ribbons, and ladies dying to pinch his cheeks and cover him with bows.

Blossom Season

This Friday Eli and I flew to Oregon to visit my family in Hood River. It's Blossom Season here and so beautiful. I miss living in Oregon and Spring is one of my favorite times of the year (along with summer). I especially love Blossom season, when all the blossoms are out on the orchard trees. My sister and nephew picked us up from the airport and spent the weekend with us. Here are some pictures that we took at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River (the grounds to the Hotel are beautiful, in case you didn't notice). Kaden was pretty upset that Baby Eli didn't say "cheese" when Grandpa took their picture. Anyway, we got lots of great pictures of the boys, and the grandkids with Grandma and Grandpa Frazier.
We're heading to the Tulip Festival in Woodburn this week, and will be going to Great-Grandpa's orchard to get some good pictures with the blossoms, so I'll be posting more pictures soon. Being home makes me realize how much I miss Oregon and living someplace that actually has seasons. But I'll stop this post now, before I go on about how great the Pacific Northwest is and how ready I am to move back. Isaac has 2 more years of school and then we plan on moving back, so I keep telling myself I only have 2 more Arizona summers to make it through (although that thought doens't help too much when the 110+ heat hits - I'll take winter over that kind of heat any day!). Hurry Isaac!

Baby Eli Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Costa Rica

We just got back from a family trip to Costa Rica. Isaac's sister, Kim, lives there with her family, and his other sister decided she wanted to get married there. So, most of the family was able to go down there for the wedding and have some adventures while we were there. All in all there were about 25 adults and 3 babies there, all of us crowded into Kim's house. Now, I am from a family of 2, and though my sister and I are now married with kids, family vacations consist of a whopping 6 adults and 2 kids. I am used to silence and lots of quiet time, so 25 adults in one house was a bit of an overload for me at times, but we had lots of fun.
We went to lots of waterfalls while we were there, which were all beautiful, but being an Oregonian, I've seen my fair share of waterfalls, and couldn't be convinced to go swimming in them. Back in the day, I didn't mind swimming in cold water (once again, I'm from Oregon - all our water is cold), but since living in Hawaii, I have been forever turned off cold water. So, I spent most of my time holding the baby, watching the braver people swim in the cold water. Eli had a great time watching Isaac swim in the water and laughing at him.
Our favorite day we went to a park that had ziplines galore. Along with normal ziplines, they had the Superman zipline, which you go down on your stomach and is over a mile long. That one was really fun. They also had a Tarzan swing (no I am not making up these names, they are the actual names from the park. The names are actually pretty accurate - imagine Tarzan swinging through the trees and that was pretty much what the Tarzan swing was, except we were strapped in with harnesses), which we all decided to do. It was mid-way through the zipline and you climbed a platform that was really high in the air, attached your harness and shoulder straps to a line, opened up a gate that was the only thing between you and the ground, and jumped off. The higher you jumped off, the higher you flew through the air. Now, watching Isaac and others jump off and go flying through the air, I totally thought that when my turn came, I would jump high off the platform (especially after hearing Marintha yell, as she was flying through the air, "This is the funnest thing I've ever done in my life!"). But, when I got up there, looking over the edge of the platform to the far drop below, I realized that I was a little scared to jump. And by a little scared, I mean, a lot scared. There was a guide on either side of me, and they opened the gate that I was leaning against, causing me to naturally lean forward in preparation for jumping off the platform. I suddenly realized that I no longer wanted to suicidally jump off a platform 70 feet up in the air. So I grabbed the gate, pulled it shut, and yelled "Isaac can have my turn, Isaac can have my turn, let me off!" At this point our guide, who I had gotten to know a little, looked at me, opened the gate, picked my up by my harness and dropped me off the edge of the platform, with me screaming the whole way.
All in all it was a great trip. Isaac and I realized that our days of easy travel were over, as we arranged our outings around nap times and feedings, but it was still really fun.
Well for my first blogpost, this was longer than I'd planned. Stay tuned for more exciting posts, for now I have a hungry son to go take care of.