Katelyn's Wish Came True

Katelyn finally has a pet of her own. In fact she has two. They are roommates, two female fancy rats that she has named "Sunshine" and "Pepper." I tried to convince her to name them Lucy and Maud or Louisa and May (after her favorite authors) but she had them already named before they came home from the pet store.

Katelyn is finding that pet ownership is not all fun. She has to clean up rat poop and deal with them being noisy while she is trying to go to sleep. However, she is up for all of it and has figured out that she can wheel their cage into the bathroom for the night where they can be as noisy as they want. At least they don't bark or shed and no one seems to be allergic. I am thrilled about that.

Mostly they have been a lot of fun for the kids, as creepy as they still seem to me. Zach asks permission several times a day to go see the rats and Katelyn takes him by the hand and they go visit them in Katelyn's room. He thinks they are pretty neat.

Katelyn asked me last night if I would rather that she didn't have these pets at all. I told her that I just want her to be happy and if this is something that truly makes her happy, I am all for it. Just don't ask me to hold them or clean their cage. :)

Christmas In Arizona

I was sitting in my ward Christmas party this year listening to some of the families share their Christmas traditions, when I realized how different Arizonans are. My jaw dropped when I heard family after family say things like, "Yeah, we always go golfing," or "We like to take the family for a bike ride," or even better, "We usually go to the shooting range as a family for Christmas." Our turn came and Brian said, "We do the Nativity and sing Christmas carols together." It was like we were the strange ones! I realized once again that I live in Arizona and that there really is no other place quite like it.

This experience reminded me about the time I was standing in line somewhere and two women behind me were talking about scorpions. One woman commented that she had been stung by scorpions six times in the last month--a couple of times during her sleep. Matter-of-factly she described how her whole leg had been paralyzed for a few minutes. The other woman said, as if she were just talking about how to get rid of flies or something, "Oh the best way to get rid of scorpions is to get a few salamanders as pets--you just let them walk around your house and they eat them." I thought she was kidding, but no, we are in Arizona and apparently scorpions paralyzing you, salamanders as pets walking around your house, and taking the kids to the shooting range are all pretty normal.
We are finding that Christmas is not much like anything we have normally experienced, even compared with our California Christmas. The weather has been in the 70s, we are still wearing shorts and T-shirts and maybe a light jacket at night, and frankly it just does not feel like Christmas. However, we are figuring out that there are some traditions we can do no matter where we live and that there are some traditions that we have just started that we really like.

Katelyn decided that she would make a replica of our home made from graham crackers. It turned out to be a very nice southwest gingerbread house.


This is the park in our neighborhood. We like to come here now that the weather is so nice. Brian got to come with us on the day of Christmas Eve. The kids had a blast playing frisbee with him. That might be a new tradition for us.

After dinner we took the kids to the temple for an outdoor Christmas concert and to see the lights. It was just like Temple Square in Salt Lake except not freezing.


Afterward we picked a few grapefruit.

We can still put the lights up on the house--just not in sub-freezing weather.

We also decorated the backyard. Palm trees look good with lights. The kids loved making these paper lanterns and having the pool turn into a sort of reflection pond. We sang Christmas carols in the glow of the lanterns.

The kids had to act out the Nativity. Zach made a great baby Jesus. Katelyn and Brandon agreed that this would be their last year as Mary and Joseph. They are turning it over to Josh and Amanda next year. Here Zach is acting out the words to "Away in a Manger," you know, "Asleep, asleep."


Another tradition that we love to do is open up one present on Christmas Eve. Of course, it is always pajamas. They love it if we all match. They had to dance around in their jammies and laugh together.


They got so hyper we decided to make it worse by giving them the sugar cookies we had made earlier. After all, it is Christmas!


Katelyn offered to help settle them all down with a story. It worked. Before long they were in bed.
We have had a wonderful Christmas this year. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have extended family around. We do miss you all very much. We love you and wish you a very Merry Christmas












Gotta go. Brian has the hot tub all ready to go and they are all waiting for me to join them-- another southwest tradition that is new and really fun. :)

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

What have the Wilhelmsens been doing this week? Trimming trees...

Ringing bells...(I promise, he does wear clothes most of the time...)And, lots and lots of singing. Last night was our Christmas concert with the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization. It was so amazing! Our family got to sing glorious, uplifting choral music to about 3,000 people. Our voices were tired by the end of two performances, but we had a wonderful time. Brandon and Katelyn loved it as well. Now it seems like Christmas time, even though I heard that the temperatures will be in the 70s this week. Would anyone like to send us pictures of their snow? We kind of miss it. A little bit. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the first time we have EVER had Thanksgiving at home with just our family. As much as we miss our families back in Utah, we really liked the slow pace of this day. We made our first turkey together with most of the fixins (we forgot about the sweet potatoes--next year!).

Katelyn and I even made real

homemade rolls (with gluten) because we just really wanted to. It was so fun to not have to be anywhere and just enjoy each other.

After our naps, watching the game, and a little bit of Mary Poppins, we headed for what may become a new tradition--hot tubbing. Doesn't every one do that on Thanksgiving?? Thinking of you all tonight and wishing you were here. As Zachie says, "Happy Kanksgiving!"

Happy Halloween

Here are some October highlights. It is finally cool enough to enjoy camping, so we took a trip to the Grand Canyon and celebrated Brandon's 13th birthday.

Zachary dressed as himself for Halloween. He was firm on not wearing a silly costume.

He was willing to dance for his candy, however, and that made up for it all. Happy Halloween everyone!

The Best Things in Life

Ok, so promising to blog every day this week has proven impossible with my family and their constant needs. Even now, I have little Zachary climbing onto my lap and Amanda asking what she needs to do next. We just had chore meeting and they are all busy fulfilling their duties to the family (what we have been learning about in our family devotionals lately). I thought I would take a second to express more of my gratitude.

The most wonderful thing has just happened. The weather has changed, almost overnight. We had a huge rainstorm that lasted a couple of days (on and off) and the weather dropped to between 65 and 85. Yesterday we went to the park and it felt REALLY good to be in the 80s with a breeze. It so reminded me of Northern California weather. This morning we woke up to coolness! It was 75 degrees when I took Brandon to his commonwealth school and there was water everywhere--even in the air! Again, it was like a taste of California. I am realizing more deeply that we have just endured the "winter" of the southwest. Now, we can enjoy the rest of the school year and really be free to explore and be outside. I am realizing what a blessing it will be to not have to hibernate all winter (like so many of our friends in the north!) Yes, our pool is a little cooler now, but who cares! We can go places now!

I recently found this quote from Robert Louis Stevenson in the Arizona Republic, our local newspaper.

"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in
your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just
before you."

I cut it out and put it on my fridge so that I could ponder it while I am preparing meals. It is really true that happiness lies in the path. Pouring over the past or fretting about the future really doesn't bring happiness. But, rolling up our sleeves and finding joy in the work right before us, really seeing the blessings right in front of our eyes, and thanking God for it all is what brings joy.

Today I am deeply grateful that I have endured this heat the best that I could and that now I have the tremendous blessing of moderate weather. I am enjoying it so much. I don't even think words can tell how much this blessing means to me. I can connect again with nature, an important way for me to feed my soul. It is like drinking deeply after a long thirst. I think I am going to like it here after all.

My Gratitude List--Day One

I loved listening to conference this weekend! It was so inspiring and peaceful. Brian allowed me to have the whole weekend off from cooking. I was in heaven just being able to sit and relax. I even got gluten-free cinnamon rolls, if you can believe it! They were really good!

I have been thinking about how I can follow the prophet's counsel to have a more grateful outlook and to show gratitude more often. I decided that every day this week I am going to post something that I am grateful for in Arizona.

Today I am going to start with the thing for which I am most grateful. That is that we are singing again. We have joined the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization (EVMCO) and now have the opportunity to be challenged musically and be a part of something truly extraordinary. It's like we have been lifted to a higher plane. We feel like singing more at home and even the kids feel that there has been a happy change. Brandon and Katelyn are in the children and youth choruses, but they are learning the songs from the adult choir as well since they join me in my practice. We not only sing more, we are singing better. That is so fun!

During our first rehearsal I peeked over to the tenor section to try to find Brian. He saw me and mouthed the words, "Thank you. I have missed this!" I did drag him to the audition, but we are both sure that this is where we are supposed to be. Our family needs music. Brian and I need music. We did not even realize how much we had missed singing together. This kind of choir is really rare. In fact there are only two in existence. One of them is in Arizona. That is one reason why I am grateful to be here.

Summer Photos

Hi, my people who read this blog. Sorry I've been absent for a while. It's not that I haven't wanted to write. It is just that I have let other things come to the front burners. Blogging just had to be put off until I was ready to write again.

We have been working on taking better care of our bodies. We have been trying to work in daily exercise, better menu planning and cooking, and getting enough sleep with earlier bedtimes. We feel really good and are now ready to dig in for the new school year. We actually started school a month ago, but that also took a lot of attention away from my blogging. I have a minute, so I thought I would post a thought or two and maybe some pictures.

At first we hated Arizona. All of us missed California so much. Even Zach occasionally laments that he wishes we could go to our real home in 'Fornia. Or sometimes he cries that he wants to go play baseball in Grandpa Carling's backyard. It is hard living in a place that seems to consist primarily of concrete. We miss our backyard and our trees! We miss the mountains! To make matters worse, we took a trip to Utah in July that made us realize that we never really mourned leaving Utah (since we thought maybe there was a chance we would move back.) So we have had a double dose of mourning. Hence the need to just go back to the basics.

Here are some pictures of our summer and why we needed to mourn.

These are all the boys in Brandon's old scout troop. Lots of them, huh. All good boys and great friends to each other. Guess how many in Brandon's scout troop now? Two. Brandon is one of them. Notice the beautiful trees and lake? It was hard for Brandon and Brian to leave that scout camp and transition to staying indoors most of the day.

This is one of the highlights of Katelyn's last few weeks in California. She got to meet one of her favorite role models, Jenny Oaks Baker. So many awesome cultural and musical opportunities in California. Hmmm.

We decided to get out of the heat after a couple of weeks of complete isolation and melting. We found relief in Cedar City. Did you know that the air actually smells wonderful nearer to the mountains? We had not known that we had missed this until we came back to Utah.

The older kids and I took in a couple of Shakespearean plays and loved every minute of it. I think the little kids loved time with Daddy in the hotel pool. I am not sure if Daddy loved Cedar City as much as the rest of us, but he is such a good sport.This is us on our picnic adventure up in North Fork. We all made it up to the waterfall even though Katelyn just had flip-flops on and I had to carry 40 pound Zach most of the way. Amanda was covered in dirt when we were done, but it was so much fun to be in the mountains.

Grandma and Grandpa waited at the trailhead for us, cheering us on. Aren't they wonderful?

We took a field trip to This Is the Place Heritage Park with Julie and her kids. What a wonderful reunion. We had already been at the copper mine and the candy factory that morning with the Wilhelmsen cousins. So many cousins and so little time...
Zachie's first horsie ride.


More cousins! It was so fun to see how they are all growing and changing, especially the babies.

Hanging out in Grandpa Wilhelmsen's shady backyard. Ahhh. We so enjoyed that the high that week was 90. (That was our low in AZ.)

We are learning not to hate Arizona. Actually there are lots of things we like about it. But, I'll have to save that for the next post.

Here We Are in Zona

Now we live in "Zona," as Zachie calls it. We are still recovering from the shock of going from 60s and 70s to 110s. Instead of wearing a sweater and spending tons of time outside, we just stay indoors as much as possible. When we do venture out, it is to the pool. We like our house a lot, but it seems very much like a nice condo and soon we'll be going home to our real house. Brian keeps assuring me that it really is OURS. It is the nicest house I've had and by far the easiest move we've ever had (since the movers did all the work) but I still don't really feel like it is home. This is us on the first day.
We happened to move here at a time when most people in the area are on vacation. There was a severe shortage of families at church on Sunday, but at least we got to sit in soft seats. We could have all fit in the first five rows! For some reason, no one wants to be here! Good thing we didn't need to call the elders to help us move in. None of our neighbors have come over to introduce themselves, probably because they are not home! Even if they were, no one wants to venture outside. I don't blame them! I don't even really want to go outside to take a picture of the house to put on the blog. Maybe later--like maybe November!

This is what we have been up to this week. Unpacking boxes and playing in the pool. The kids seem to be handling it okay. I mean, there are worse places to be stranded. This desert seems to be somewhat inhabitable. I'll let you know if we survive until November (when they say it finally becomes bearable.)

Here is Zachie helping me unpack the mountain of boxes in the kitchen. He's a big help.

Josh and Amanda--loving the pool. Luckily it has a large shallow area. They are learning how to swim fast, though. Give them a few more days.

Brandon and Josh having water wars.

Zachie feeding and petting the "dolphins" from the hot tub.

Zachie the water boy.

Brian getting thrown off the giant clown fish. The pool is definitely bringing out the inner child in him. I've also heard that he is fitting in really well among all the scouts at scout camp. Hmmm...imagine that.Katelyn loves the pool. She would spend the day in it if she could. It is long enough that she and I can even do some lap swimming if we can take a break from life guard duty once in a while.
My friend Toni, who also recently moved, posted on her blog the saying, "Come what may, and love it." I am trying to adopt this same attitude. I did come here crying all the way, but I am going to love it here I am sure. It will just take some time. Until then, we will swim.