...still: the farm

I wish I had a picture of the  giant, (but safely buried) rectangular trampoline and the 11 more kids that were on that at the time of this picture! And take note that it is Carter GETTING the underdog and Ethan JUMPING off the swing and flying through the air.

a perfect wyoming sunset

I recently filled out a get to know you survey at a church activity and one of the questions was "where is your favorite place to vacation?"  This was actually my hardest question.  I thought back to trips as a kid to Ocean City, MD or the Adirondacks.  I thought of my girls trip to San Diego this past spring.  I have never been to Europe or Hawaii but would like to go someday. I remembered our fun family trip to Seattle when the boys were little. All of the times in Jackson Hole, or Vail, stuck in Sidney, Nebraska in a blizzard (remind me to tell you about that sometime...), the camping and adventures here in Alaska...

But what I wrote down was The Farm.

Oh the farm is quite possible one of the least relaxing places on the planet too!  This year there were LARGE portions of our trip where at any given moment there were 17 children and only 2 moms to be found.  We had a revolving door of visitors outside of our immediate family that constantly changed the routine of daily life.  We had dads Jeff and JaDee go home leaving me and EmRee husbandless.  There are ditches full of water for children to fall into.  Little boys asking for matches (which we have to hide). Big boys wanting to shoot air soft guns and fireworks. Pirate ships and broken arms (that happened after I left).

And of course 3 meals a day.

Plus snacks.

But as hectic as it is, I guess when I think of where I would choose to spend my airplane tickets, I would almost always choose to do it here.

On the road again

Ok this picture keeps loading here instead of where i want it to be, but Carter turned 13 while we were in Yellowstone.  He got a pair of these FIVE FINGER KSO shoes.  He loves them!

We are off to Valdez, home of the 1988 oil that I think may have finally lost its place in the sun as the biggest oil spill in our borders when that Gulf of Mexico episode had to come along and steal the title. I'd say 20 years as the reigning oil spill champ is quite a record to hold, so good luck beatin' that run!

But first, a look at the new light fixture JaDee got me for our 14th anniversary.

But I digress.  What I am really hoping to show you here is some pictures of our trip to the wild wild west. And what I discovered on this trip what will always be home for me.

Check out the Tetons that we flew over

OK so this is the epitome of my second child.  Swim suit, cowboy boots and if you look closely, spurs! Just leanin' casual against the pasture fence with the baby calf named Star Shining Bright. He got a boat load of fireworks as a late birthday present from Aunt C and spent his time blowing up ant hills.  He told me ants fear him, and tremble at the sound of his approaching footsteps.

There were herds of Buffalo in Yellowstone this year!

This is my amazing niece M.  She wrote an awesome book for a creative writing assignment at school that had me hooked!  She can dive, ride horses, make anything (including an entire miniature golf course for her twin brothers' birthday party), and do Olivia's hair for church.

Here is Bridger!! He is back with us from his bone marrow transplant last year.  We wore this kid ragged with hikes, swims, trampolines and fireworks!

Olivia, B and G and the rescued kitties, who may have actually been running into the drain pipe for safety instead of needing saved as these 3 claimed.

P and B and Livs... these guys are double, or should I say triple trouble!

Carter and his Grandpa

This was all of the Great Grandkids of Jay and Emma McNiven at the town celebration for Pioneer Day.  The sign says "Best Crop Ever!" The kids got a kick out of being the ones to throw the candy this year. JaDee and I watched the parade from the sidelines and had to fight of other kids for our share of taffy.

Farmer Livs is locking up the gate so Star Shining Bright doesn't get out.  Her milk bucket she used to feed him with is by her feet.

Old faithful Boardwalk.  Carter still loves the geology here.

Grandpa is not dead, he just always finds the darnedest places to take a nap.

Oh these girls were so happy to see each other.  They never missed a beat and played like they did when we used to live around the corner. It was so sad to see these two say goodbye. Livs wanted to ride with them back to UT and we could pick her up in an airplane later.

All 35 of the Moncur clan in front of the Old Faithful Lodge.  We were quite a sight in our matching shirts.  As long as we were in the big group I was OK wearing mine, it was when it was just me and my 3 kids and husband that I looked like the dorky mom who thought matching shirts would be nice. 

Just one of the many things to do on the farm.

This Aunt shares a birthday with Carter. So for this year's 40th bash her husband organized a surprise party complete with her favorite Cotton Candy ice cream.

Puppies Ike and Jack definitely got their share of love and attention while we were all there.

At the town dance, we were 2/3 of those in attendance.  Here is Ethan with one of the twins.  Both my boys had to either dance with a cousin or a mother every dance!

No sprinkler system here.  Some good ole irrigation pipes and a ditch to do the cousins favorite "Flood the Yard."

At the town dance to Cotton Eye Joe, JaDee, his brother and a sister and several little cousins race in the line dance.

A place for everything

Caution: this is long and a little something I have been mulling over in my mind for about 2 years and has just now been regurgitated into words

Families have places. And for a long time I did not know what my place was in my husbands family. It is a family of 6 kids. All very talented, confidant, determined people. At first I was especially intimidated and even jealous of JaDee's younger sister, CaMee. We were both getting married the same year. We had (have) very similar tastes in clothes, houses, style etc and I perceived a sense of competition between us. Plus I was taking the brother who helped her do everything from run the 400 in track to build her projects as an interior decorator in college. I wrote her a letter those first months we were both newlyweds, and explained my need to love her and for her to forgive me. We have always had a connection since then. Sharing children, friends, ideas and spiritual growth.


That hurdle crossed, I then had to adjust from being the oldest, and a daughter at that, of my own family to becoming the first daughter in law of a new one. A family that is tight with each other and has 3 girls to boot. This time I was jealous of the dynamics between the girls. They almost spoke in code with each other and their mother. A code I didn't know. About the people of their small town, the very close extended family that includes relatives most people only see on genealogy charts, and events that happened long before I ever came on the scene. I felt left out. It was a lonely feeling. But it was one I inflicted on myself for no one ever meant for me to feel that way.

I got over it. It was not easy and I hate to say that I hurt more than just myself along the way. I said things I shouldn't have in my selfish anguish.

Two things helped me get over feeling and understand the bond that these women share with each other. The first was the marriage of my own sister. Courtney is 8 years younger than me. I got married when she was 12 and had Carter when she was 13. For her entire teenage years I was an old married lady. To further the gap in our growing up experiences my parents got divorced when I was 23 and she was 15. Thus my youngest siblings were raised by a single mother, whereas I had a 2 parent household. While I am privy to a lot of what my mother went through (often more than I ever asked to know) I really never knew what Courtney's experience as a child of divorced parents was like during that time.

So when she married at 19 to her wonderful Blake, we started sharing life again. I got to be an older sister planning her wedding reception, talking about her college experience as she too went into secondary education, dealing with in-laws, and in turn, dealing with our mother as an adult child, and bossing our brothers around as only sisters can. We started forging a bond that is unique only to sisters. A closeness of the heart that ties us together. It is more than just shopping together, (although we had a great time at the Gateway this week and will not be telling our husbands exactly how much was spent. We will just casually start wearing amazing new clothes that will dazzle them into forgetting about everything but the beautiful women they married and they will be so blinded by said beauty that they will not even think to ask the price of such beauty).

The last few years we were in Utah, Courtney was 25 minutes from me. She joined me on journey's with my kids (which I fear contributed to her 5 year wait to have Brooke). We analyzed everything from our parents divorce to the pros and cons of ballet flats as the new trend in shoes. I was her diplomat when both our parents came to her graduation from USU and she watched all 3 of my children while JaDee and I escaped for a weekend. We can ask each other anything and know there is always someone in the corner for us.

The second thing that helped me understand the bond of my sisters in law and more importantly the bond my mother in law has with her 3 daughters was the birth of my own daughter. It was different having a girl after 2 sons. I can't justly express my ponderings over this event but I knew that what I had gone through to bring her into the world was something that she too had been divinely called of God to do. I was passing on a lineage that is as old as the story of Eve to her. Being female is a divine calling. Women have gifts bestowed on them to be compassionate, loving, understanding, perceptive, caring, loving, creative and nurturing. It is a blessing to me to have Olivia to share these gifts with and to guide her as she too gains a testimony of what it means to be a Daughter of God.

My mother in law must have felt this way about the birth of each of her girls. I now understand how and why they can communicate in code, ask each other first for everything, do everything for everyone when we are all together, and have their rituals and traditions amongst themselves and pass this all on to their own daughters.

I understand.

I honor it.

I do not feel left out because I have my own.

And I know that I do have a place here. It is different from my place in my original family and different from my family that I have with my husband and children. I feel a camaraderie with my mother in law and sisters in law; enough so that I can call them all my sisters. Because sister-in law is too impersonal to refer to the things we have come to love about each other. To general a term to imply the situations all of us have prayed about, fasted about, cried about and worked to accomplish together.

But at the same time "sister" is also a term I use for my own blood relation, as the red heads use for theirs, that means something different.