i was there

destination: morning glory arch. arrival: by foot and by rope. heather and i hiked in with the kids on negro bill canyon trail. the guys parked at the top of another trail, hiked through slot canyons, repelled a few cliffs, and met us under the arch. how about that for adventure?!

(quick interjection for a funny story: the tuesday after we got home, i woke up around 4 or so to feed pace, and my right arm started itching. i itched it, but also felt bumps. after i fed him and put him back down, i went to the bathroom to take a look. i had what looked like hives on my arm, on the outside of the crook of the arm. i put on some hydrocortisone and went back to bed. when i woke up, the hives had turned into this small, bumpy rash about the size of a quarter. somewhat itchy, but not bad. i thought i'd just wait and see. it got really itchy that night, and only got worse when i put on more hydrocortisone. so i itched it. i woke up the next morning to more bumps spreading along my arm. i'd had poison ivy before, and this didn't look anything like it. skin things make me nervous, and since this skin thing was spreading, i decided to call the dr. the more i thought about it, the less i wanted to go--"i had worked for dr's for nearly 10 years! all he's going to do is tell me it's something like poison ivy." i thought. so i looked up images of poison ivy online, and they all looked different, and none like my rash. i decided since they were all different from each other, mine very well could be poison ivy. so then i googled "is there poison ivy in moab?" guess what?!--the very first link that came up was to the negro bill canyon trail advising hikers to be careful, that the trail was full of poison ivy! mystery solved. i just put on calamine lotion, and it dried right up.)

heather and i started in the parking lot (the traditional way). when we got out of the car, we noticed a rainbow going across the sky and another rainbow halo around the sun. we were hoping that meant good fortune for our hike, and not something like encountering storms, deadly snakes, or pirates along the way.




we made it to the arch with kids in tow! the rest of my photos from the hike are in the previous post. the hiking backpack was very comfortable, i felt great using it with pace, and he loves it! he falls asleep every time in it.

we couldn't have made more perfect timing. it took us about 2 hours to hike in to the arch, and we sat down wondering if we'd already missed the guys, and if we hadn't, how much longer they'd be, how they were doing, etc. we had walkie-talkies, but when mine was on, david's was off, and when david's was on, mine was off. apparently. we never communicated successfully through the walkies. too bad. we had arrived, i was feeding pace, and about 10 minutes later, we hear someone yodeling. crazy brian. then a rope came off the side of the cliff. here they come!

their hike in, starting at the top and working their way down. courtesy brian's camera for their journey through the rock:

always a good idea to meditate/do yoga while canyoneering...

jake's at the top, throwing a rope down.

here come the descents. this was the final repel down the cliff by the arch where heather and i were waiting. i think it's about 90ft to the ground. right before they guys came down, another group of hikers came in with little kids. they stayed and watched the repelling show, which they thought was awesome! i'm sure it made the guys feel like superstars--the families were taking photos, congratulating them when they made it down, and "ooohhhh-ing" and "aaahhhh-ing" their descents!

brian was first to come down.

then david. i documented the entire thing--he's afraid of heights, so this was pretty monumental...

finally to the free-hang. david let out a few involuntary yelps at this point. i think i would have, too, with my feet dangling 60 ft in the air!

about 10 ft off the ground--you can breathe again!!

yep, that's where you just came from!

"i was there!"

my camera wasn't fast enough to catch jake. he is such a unassuming, softspoken, humble, mellow guy, but you get him on a cliff with gear, and he turns into a super-billy-goat-spiderman-hero. he was completely at home on the cliffs, nimbly hopping over the edge, and then--bam!--he flipped over, and flew down the rope head first. what a show!

he was on the ground before my camera was ready for another photo!

we all ended up hiking out together, squeezed in our car back to the campground, and then the guys went back out to get brian's truck. lunch anyone?

spring has sprung

i finished the series a few weeks ago--now we just have to hang it on the right wall in pace's room. fall is my favorite, with winter being the runner up. they seem cleaner to me, not so busy.

going private

if i already had your email on file, i've sent you an invitation to be a reader of this blog. if you didn't receive an invitation, send me a note with your email and i'll add you to the private reader list. i'll make it official in the next week or so.

the reason for my day

my boys

my baby

i had no idea david even knew what a double-boiler was, much less how to use one for melting chocolate to hand-dip strawberries to surprise me for mother's day. where did he hide this stuff?! yes, that's a camcorder! you will most likely watch baby videos posted on this blog in the future.

m-i-l

(david wanted me to clarify--they are about to hug in this photo...)

july 2001: david called me from a payphone the day he entered the mtc. we had randomly become pen pals before we served missions for the church, and he was calling to say hello for the first time, and goodbye before we separately entered our missions (he went to illinois, and i went to brazil). when he called, he was in utah, and i was in maryland. it was 5am his time, 7am mine. when i asked him what in the world he was doing, he said his mom woke up with him and agreed to take him to a payphone so he could call a girl he had never met in person.

june 2004: david and i were sealed in the washington d.c. temple. when david and i told his parents we were getting married, they asked, "which temple?"

david was baptized into the LDS church when he was 17. i have never known my in-laws to "subscribe" to a particular faith/religious institution, and here was their only son--their only child--joining a faith that is more than church on sundays. it is a way of life, a change of life, a different culture than mainstream america. i wasn't there when he asked his parents permission to be baptized; i wasn't there when he started going to early morning seminary; i wasn't there when he wanted to go to church on sundays instead of the family camping trip on the weekend. i imagine it was hard to watch their only child become a person other than who they thought he was.

two years later he left the house to serve a mission for this new faith. they may not have understood his reasons for wanting/needing to go, they may not have recognized the young man who was leaving, or the young man who would return two years later, but they supported him because they loved him as their son. i imagine it was hard to take their only child to the airport not fully understanding what a mission entailed, where he would be, who and why he would teach, how testifying was so crucial to his own spiritual development.

one year after returning from his mission, david and i were married. when david and i told his parents we were getting married, they asked, "which temple?" knowing full-well they would not be permitted to enter the temple and witness their only son be sealed for time and all eternity across an altar. knowing they would wait outside on the temple grounds. knowing they would travel hundreds or thousands of miles to watch us walk out of the temple as a married couple. i imagine it was hard to simply ask, "which temple?"

david has enriched my life, softened my edges, buoyed my heart, completed me. i imagine it was hard to let your son go so freely--but i thank you for him.

this woman needs no title...she *is* the title

as my mom doesn't like blogs, i am not going to name any names. and i tried to find photos that were slightly older, so she maybe wouldn't be as recognizable when compared with her current self, but that's near impossible. my mom has hardly aged--she's found the fountain of youth and is as gorgeous now as then. the only thing that's different is the hair. and maybe the clothes.

(this one is my favorite)

i can't express what my mom has taught me. or tried to teach me. or continues to teach me. here is a woman who worked hard to get the education she has, works hard as a very intelligent career woman, works hard to save every penny she makes. and what does she do with it? for herself: shops at thrift stores, buys groceries only when they are on sale, eats every meal at home. i don't want to give you the wrong impression--she isn't a "ragbag" lady. she loves to cook (and therefore has yummy, healthy ingredients in her cupboards), makes top-notch pies, dresses very stylishly (i used to leave little notes on her bed asking her if i could borrow a particular shirt to wear to school the next day), the list goes on. my mom is courageous, kind, always looks out for the other person, is constantly seeking to improve herself, and delights in the Lord. she is also the last person who would want public recognition, but i want to publicly thank you, mom, for being more than the "requisite" mom.

here's what she lives for: her children. she fills our pantries/cupboards hundreds of dollars over, takes us on shopping sprees, sends us fun "care packages," helps us buy our first homes (she still rents), helps us with our school loans, takes us on awesome vacations. she says she wants to make up for what she couldn't do for us when we were growing up, but i don't think she realizes there's no way to replace what she *did* do for us growing up.

because of my mom,

i know who i am

i know where i came from

i know where i am going

i know i'm a good mom.

before we get too dramatic, my mom has also made me laugh. a lot. my favorite # 1 all-time laugh: i think this happened after watching the never-ending story and seeing gmork lurking in the shadows of that cave--hello, scary!!

i couldn't fall asleep one night because gmork was under my bed (as well as gremlins and jaws). my mom spent probably an hour with each of us individually tucking us in at night. she would sing us lullabys, rub our backs, talk with us about the day. this continued well into my teens, and i can neither confirm nor deny how old my brothers were when my mom stopped tucking them in at night. looking back, i now realize the hours of tucking in probably postponed the hours of homework/studying she had to do each night. back to the story--so i couldn't sleep, and even started to cry because i had worked myself up to really see gmork under my bed. my mom came in, and reminded me that we had watched america's funniest home videos that night. we had all laughed at a video of a very (cough, cough) healthy baton-twirling girl. my mom said, "honey, a hungry wolf is not going to want to eat your skinny little bones, he's going to eat that baton-twirler!" i burst out laughing, and my tears turned to laughing tears. on a side-note, i am sure that baton-twirler grew up to be miss america or something.

thanks for scaring away all the wolves, mom.

**addendum: i have since received permission to post a recent photo:

woman of pure gold

everyone loves their grandma. here is mine, claire edel zeleny:

my grandma is beautiful, classy, has great taste, and is full of the perfect manners that only grandmas have. most of all, though, my grandma radiates the pure love of Christ. she is constant in patience, love, and her faith.

she taught me how to conduct music, 3:4 and 4:4 as they were the easiest for my 8 year-old hands. if i got lost?--no problem! "just go down at the bar." i have never forgotten that advice, and cannot tell you how many times i have gotten lost or missed a beat or got off rhythm...and it was no problem! i could just start fresh at the bar of the new measure. i led music in relief society today, and smiled to myself as i got ahead of the beat; i thought of my grandma and started fresh at the new measure. it really works!

at her 80th birthday party we listened to her life lessons at the end of the meal. the very first thing she started with? bearing her testimony. every lesson she shared she tied to a scripture. in that moment, sitting with the group of family and friends of various faiths and religious backgrounds, my grandma became more to me

than the grandma who played memory with me,

who took the cousins out to the smorgasbord restaurant,

who kept a dress-ups box for us,

who had the best mr. men book collection,

who split her beautiful costume jewelry with one of my cousins and me,

who shared her cracked glass colored vases with us,

who willingly sent us home each summer with bags and bags of frozen blackberries, raspberries, and peaches--

my grandma became a woman of strength, integrity, loving kindness, and fearlessness as she declared her allegiance to and love for her Savior.

man of iron

(photos by steve ruark, from the following article)

Explore Baltimore County: Man of Iron: Metalworking tradition lives on at blacksmith's forge in Perry Hall

i remember driving there every summer, passed the farmer's fruit and vegetable stands and through the corn fields, "deep" into the countryside for this suburban girl; i remember the 3 or 4 different kinds of lunch meat, the smell of rye bread, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, and pickles for lunch sandwiches; i remember "exploring" the basement, eating dried peaches and playing hide-and-seek in between the rows of shelves full of treasures to our 5 year-old eyes; the summer breeze perfumed with bursting blackberries and raspberries; the tree swing next to the shop, glazed with freedom; i remember the smell of his clothes, laced with iron shavings; the smell of his shop--fire, smelting, iron, wood; his no-nonsense stride as he made his way to the forge, unchanged in 30 years.

this is my grandpa. raymond alois zeleny.

teddy bear from paw-paw

fall

winter

how to celebrate easter in remembrance

my sister-in-law had this link on her blog, and i couldn't pass up the opportunity to share it.

part of the reason we love the name pace is because it means "passover" in hebrew. we discovered we were pregnant while teaching the old testament in gospel doctrine at our church. we had become emotionally linked to this particular "holiday" after teaching the passover lesson and its beautiful imagery and symbolism. the first passover occurred when moses was trying to convince pharaoh to allow the israelites a 3-days' journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to their God (exodus 3:18)--this eventually escalated to a request to free the israelites completely. having been in captivity for hundreds of years within the egyptian culture, it was moses' job to remind the israelites of their sacred heritage through the covenant of the fathers (otherwise known as the abrahamic covenant); performing the sacred ordinances and sacrifices were part of that covenant. pharaoh refused, and the "10 plagues" began.

the final, and worst, plague was the death of every firstborn in all the land (exodus 11:3-6). to protect the israelites (whom the Lord interestingly called His firstborn), the Lord instructed them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to take the blood and mark the doorway of their houses. the blood would be a token to the destroying angel to pass over that particular house, and the firstborn within would live (exodus 12:12-14). the whole purpose of the old testament is to look forward to Christ. the sacrificial blood on the doorways wasn't merely a token to escape mortal death, it was a token of the liberty, redemption, and sanctification we would receive through Christ's sacrificial and atoning blood. here was a promise to escape separation from God.

Christ could have dismissed the destroying angel, He could have chosen a "passing over". He instead chose to cover our doorways with His life.

it is not His sacrificial death we celebrate, but His atoning life--3 days after hanging on the cross, Christ rose from the cold, stone tomb, and walked. His resurrection draws all men to Him (3 Nephi 27:14), brings about the conditions of repentance (Helaman 14:18), allows mercy to claim the penitent (Alma 42:23), loosens the bands of death and sin that bind us down to destruction (Alma 7:11-15), ransoms mankind from the effects of the fall (2 Nephi 9), makes intercession for all the children of men (2 Nephi 2:6-9).

how to celebrate easter dapper-style

owls in season

we were going to do pace's room in noah's ark style, but then we couldn't find any crib sets we liked. david found a super cute owl bedding set from dwell studios at a great price, so we are now doing owls. i am finally getting to some artwork for the walls. going along with the owl theme, i'm painting winter/spring/summer/fall with a little owl hanging out in his tree. summer is done, and winter is almost finished.