Life in a Northern Town: FAMILY LETTER 02.12.19

Dear Loved Ones,

Another month of winter has come and gone. With Home Church now on Sunday evenings it’s hard for me to carve out letter writing time. I will figure it out at some point, but for now, I will limp along relying on social media posts and texts to reconstruct our doings when eve I can make time.

We were only a week into the new year when I last wrote and now we are nearly 6 weeks in. This week we celebrate Valentine’s Day, the wedding of my Young Ones niece Brittany Casper to James Gardner, our 18^th anniversary, Presidents Day, and we remember our Aunt Iva Post Anderson who passed away 1/26/19 after a long battle with MS. Her funeral is in Arizona the same day and Brittany’s wedding and we send out love and condolences to our Anderson cousins who have now lost their father, mother, and brother.

Since our last letter, we have done a ton of reorganizing and moving around in our house. We moved the little boys’ beds into James’ room and bunked them, then put a queen bed from the ranch into their room, thinking if they could snuggle each other, they wouldn’t need to sleep in our bed as much. So far this has proved wrong and they rarely sleep down there, but we are working on it. They have star charts for reading, tooth-brushing, and potty use---maybe we will add sleeping in your own bed to the list! This weekend in Utah we will let them choose some IKEA accessories and a new duvet cover for their bed, so maybe they will feel more ownership in their space. The third week of January (1/14-17) was finals week for our high school girls and it was a pretty intense week, but we survived, and they did well (Heidi reached her goal of a B average, and Addie got straight A’s by the skin of her teeth). I had my pal Lisa over for Crappy Brunch 1/14 and we had such a great visit. I really love laughing with her. As she said upon departure, “I feel like I’ve had a therapy session! We need to do this on the regular.” To that I say HECK YES—we just had another crappy brunch yesterday 2/11 and it was great, too! (btw, the brunch part is just wild berry/spinach smoothies, which is awesome for me, but crappy for a regular person who eats regular food). Right in the middle of crazy finals week on 1/16, our girls had New Beginnings in Young Women. Aunt Kelli is the YW President and she helped the Laurels plan a really sweet evening with the theme, “Girl on Fire.” It was spirit-filled and simple, and I was so impressed with the girls and their testimonies. I love each of them dearly.

Friday 1/18 was grading day, so the kids were home. We stayed up late on 1/17 and watched movies and ate home made pizza. On Friday, Rich and Jess and Grandpa Melin took the scouts up to snow camp at Mill Creek. They went XC skiing on Saturday. Meanwhile back at home, I had to get up early on 1/19 and drive Heidi and Kristina to Red Lodge for a YFU (Youth For Understanding, our exchange program) meeting. It was fun to see all the students again and catch up on their activities and exchange ideas with the other host families. Most of them went skiing after the meeting, but we ate some really great tacos for lunch and headed back home. We arrived home around 2pm and Rich was already home with the scouts. Aunt Kelli had Ammon and Niles because Addie had another babysitting job, so Uncle Jess and Rich planned a bowling outing for the kids. They hung out all afternoon with cousins. That evening, Kelli and I got some girlfriends together at Mustang Foods and celebrated Robyn Jones’ birthday. It was such a cozy night out with good conversation and great food! Sunday 1/20 was another great Sabbath day and we stayed up late to watch a lunar eclipse and “blood moon.” For most of the night the moon was blocked by cloud cover, but we got a peek. Then our friends shared lots of cool photos online the next day.

Tuesday 1/22, Rich took me on a date to the temple. We attended the 4pm session and had dinner at Red Lobster and picked up groceries at Costco. There were some changes to the temple ceremonies at the first of the year, so we were excited to experience those and I was not disappointed. I was surprisingly moved and feel so grateful that this is the endowment my children will receive. I also enjoyed my shrimp, steak and salad dinner SO MUCH. We were also super lucky to find base layer sets (long johns) for our kids at $4.97 a pair! We bought some for every kid we could think of. On the way home, I listened to Elder Corbridge’s BYU devotional, which I highly recommend to everyone.

Wednesday 1/23, Rich and the deacons put on “A Very Merry Un-birthday” Party for the youth. They had a big birthday cake and white elephant birthday gift exchange game. This is their second year doing this and I think it should be a tradition—it’s really fun. That following weekend, James and nephew Matthew performed in SGMS’ “Willy Wonka” play at the Shane Center. James played an Oompa-Loompa and Matthew played Charlie’s sleepy grandpa. They were so cute and the show was fun. The whole extended family was at the Saturday matinee, which was AWESOME. Right after the matinee, we had to miss the evening performance because we had the adult session of stake conference at 7pm, and our a capella sextet was performing “We Thank Thee O God for A Prophet” and needed to practice at 6:30. Rich took Addie and me to Whistle Pig for some sizzling dulsot bulgogi bibimpap, then we went to practice our song with Robyn Jones singing descant, Jeanette and Addie singing soprano, me on alto, Dan Smith on tenor, and Mark Mills on bass. It went perfectly; I love singing with professionals! The meeting was also nice, discussing our North America-North Central Area mission statement for 2019, which is a re-wording of the threefold mission of the church—proclaim the gospel to all of God’s children, on both sides of the veil, and help each other stay on the covenant path. After the meeting, we took Jeanette Jones out for froyo for her sweet sixteenth. We sure love that girl!

The following week, I got a little nesty and did some early spring cleaning, purging my dresser and the boys’ and deep cleaning yucky areas of the house. This process will continue into March and April, but I’m already grateful for the progress. On Thursday 1/31 we went to Math night at Niles’ school, then out for Taco Bell afterward. The next day was another no school Friday for all my kids. Addie had an all-day ACT Prep course. James had his pals Charlie and Aiden over to play games and sleep over. In the evening, we were surprised by a visit from Mitch Parks and later his mom and brothers, who came up to visit from Idaho Falls. Mitch and Addie went with Rich to Bozeman to get Addie some new running shoes while I wrangled a bunch of tween boys. Saturday, we did our regular chores and had the Parks over for tortilla soup dinner. Emma Parks brought her pal Mackenzie Bankert and we all had a good visit. Heidi went to Bozeman with Sophie, then we let Sophie sleep over. Meanwhile, Addie and Mitch and TJay went to the Elks lodge to dance to a live band for Erin Petersen’s 17^th birthday. Everybody had a fun night, I think. That night the temperature dropped about 50 degrees and it was really cold and snowy for church. We drove out to the ranch after church for lunch with Grandpa and Grandma. Sunday night, the Jelli Melins came over to watch the Super Bowl with us and brought tons of yummy food. Nobody cared about the game (and it was a lame one); we enjoyed the ads, the halftime show was awful, but we had fun snuggling by the fire and hanging out with loved ones and eating good food.

Monday 2/4 Rich worked late, and the kids and I made Valentines for missionaries. After dinner we stayed up late at the kitchen table and did homework together while I finished up Valentines. Heidi texted me the funniest Jesus picture, I laughed til I cried, so I’m attaching it. I lost my nesty mojo last week, so I worked on making mix CDs I promised people long ago. I sent out several 2-cd sets of music from 1983-1986 called “Freshman.” It was jolly good fun and the recipients seem pleased. After a week of “MEH” laundry-doing, cd-burning, dinner-cooking days, we enjoyed a Saturday home together. I baked some cookies; Addie had a gang of friends over to watch “Les Miserables” at noon, then we attended niece Lexi’s school play, “Cindy Lou: A western Cinderella Story” which was cute as usual. Lexi was a pretty little cowgirl. That night I finished watching the Merchant and Ivory “Howard’s End” after having watched the latest version starring Haley Atwell on Prime streaming. Each had its pros and cons, so I can’t say there is a best version. I liked Haley’s portrayal of Meg Schlegel better than Emma Thompson’s (I know, blasphemy, but I really think she had a better kind, free-thinker vibe Forster wrote in the book). In fact, I think all the characters in the newer version were better developed because it’s a 4-hour mini-series rather than a 2-hour film. But you really can’t ever out-do the rich cinematography of a Merchant & Ivory film. It was so beautiful! I loved the scenes of Mr. Bast wandering through the forest covered in blue bonnets—that’s how England looked on our last visit and it was just breathtaking. I forgot about the fantastic moral of the story, when Meg asks Mr. Wilcox, “Will you forgive her as you yourself have been forgiven...Can you not be honest for once in your life? Why can’t you say, ‘What Helen has done, I have done?’”—Just like “Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors” or D&C 64:10- “I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” Interesting ideas.

Church on Sunday was lovely. Afterward Addie had dress rehearsal for the choir variety show and I helped set up the 40 tables in the audience. It took a while, but it was a fun afternoon. We got home and had home church followed by pot roast dinner. Brianna Pittman came over to help Addie study for her chemistry test, so she joined us for dinner. The little boys fell asleep early after a wild weekend, so we had a quiet evening to finish our studies and Rich and James worked on their huge Lego Bugatti car together. I love quiet evenings!

The week is off to a great start. We attended the first Variety show last night with Johnsons and Joneses. It was so much fun; the kids never cease to amaze and entertain! I’m looking forward to tonight’s show; I’m going with Heidi and Kristina and James. We will help serve desserts and see the show again. Then tomorrow I’ve got to buckle down and get us packed for our trip to Utah. We are going to have a blizzard between now and then, so say a little prayer that the plows get out and make way for Melin-mobiles! I fear nothing after the drive I made alone through Utah in a white out blizzard in a minivan full of five kids and Christmas presents! All things are possible to her that believeth!

We look forward to seeing lots of loved ones this weekend, and we miss the rest of you! We love you and wish you another great week!

Love, Jamie and Rich and Family