My Random Three's Tag

Sorry, Valeri, that it's taken me so long, but I wanted to wait until I had time to sit down and think about it. Now is that time. I've never been "tagged" before, so we'll see how I do...

My Random Threes

JOYS

1. My family -- I absolutely love and adore James, Cameron, Micah, Ammon, Ethan, Ian, Jamey, Teancum, Rebecca, Kija, and Elizabeth. I love my parents, my brothers, my parents-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my cousins, all of my family. I am SOOO blessed! I never had sisters, but my sisters-in-law are the best sisters I could ever ask for! I love my kids so much and I already wonder what on earth I'm going to do when they're all grown up and gone. That is the one bad thing about having them close together -- they're all going to leave at once! And unless I live next door to an Olive Garden, I'll be at a total loss for anything to do!

2. Running. I love to run. When I run down a hill I feel as close as I ever care to feel to flying. When I run up a hill I feel like I am conquering the world. When I look around at the beautiful scenery I feel so happy and grateful for where I live and the many blessings that I have. When I run by myself I have lots of time to think and this helps me sleep better at night because I've "thought things out" while I ran. I get my scripture reading done while I run too, because I listen to at least one chapter on my mp3 player. And I get to listen to Rebecca sing opera. :) I am so grateful that I haven't been having trouble with my knees lately so that I can run to my heart's content.

3. The Olive Garden. Hey, we're supposed to be honest, right? :)

4. OK, since that was a totally obvious one I'll do a fourth. Organizing. I love to organize. I like there to be a place for everything and everything in its place. I love to organize my time and my space. I love to organize my kids (they do not love this). When I was growing up I loved to organize my mother's kitchen cupboards (and she couldn't find anything after I did). Some of my kids have inherited my love for organizing. If my house isn't organized and put away when I go to bed I feel somewhat crazy and can't sleep. I am losing my mind already -- did I say that out loud?!? -- so if I don't have things in their "place" and can't find them then I get stressed.

FEARS

1. Being a widow. I told James that we need to die at the same time because I can't live without him. I really don't know what I would do. My roommate Amy said that she plans to die in an airplane crash with just her and her husband in the plane (on the way home from their last mission together). I think James and I will join Amy and Kalob in their little airplane too -- after a quick stop at the Olive Garden -- right before I get alzheimers.

2. Losing another of my children. After Ammon died, I thought I was immune from this sort of thing happening again. I felt "safe" and not terribly worried, thinking I'd already given my share and surely I deserved only happiness after such heartache. When we lost Kija, I realized that I was certainly not immune and I became terrified to realize that I could lose ANY or all of my children at any time. There is no "quota" on such things. I pray over and over again every day for Heavenly Father not to take Elizabeth (because she's the youngest and most vulnerable) and I pray constantly for Him to watch over and protect all of my children. Even though I know Heavenly Father gives us the strength we need to deal with the trials that He gives us, I still don't want to go through that again. Sometimes I imagine that if I thank Heavenly Father enough for Elizabeth, He won't take her away, so I thank Him over and over again every day for my beautiful healthy baby girl. And I hold her an extra minute longer, give her an extra kiss or hug, and realize that it could always be the last...

3. Heights. I have always been afraid of heights. My fear of heights has made me miss out on lots of things that I would like to do. I missed out on seeing some really awesome Indian ruins when we were hiking in Moab and I just couldn't get up the courage to climb up a steep incline (about 8 feet) to see them, so I had to watch James' video recording of them and I was SOO sad that I had missed seeing them in person -- and I've missed seeing lots of things in Moab because of my fear of heights but my fear is very real. They built a tram near our home in Moab that went from the ground up a thousand or so feet up a steep cliff. The owner offered to let us ride it for free one day so we climbed in the chair (like a ski lift) and rode to the top and I kept my eyes closed the ENTIRE time, and clutched Ethan and Cameron in a death grip (James had Micah, Jamey, and Ian) because I was absolutely terrified of me or one of them falling out of the chair, or of the line breaking and all of us plummetting to our deaths. And I'm not just afraid when I'm up high, I'm afraid when I'm down low and look up at something high - I get that dizzy feeling and my hands go numb. Once we went with my parents to the Conference Center and I only lasted about 5 minutes before I had to leave because I was starting to panic from being up high and I was afraid I was going to pass out. My fear of heights has led to my stage fright also. I never used to have stage fright when I would sing, until my choir at Rick's went on tour with our Oratorio and one of the places we performed (I think it was at BYU) the choir had to stand around the edge of the orchestra pit. Since I'm so short I am always on the front row, so I had to stand with my toes on the very edge of the orchestra pit with the orchestra playing about 7 feet below us. The Oratorio was about 30-45 minutes long and I was so TERRIFIED the whole time that I have had terrible stage fright ever since and didn't even bother to try out for choir at BYU. It makes me sad, but I can't help it. I was so proud of myself when Natalie and I went to Moab and I walked around the bowl to stand under Delicate Arch. That is the only time I've ever dared to do that (and I've been back since) because of my intense fear of heights.

GOALS

1. You probably already know about this one. I would like to go to all the temples in the United States. Actually, I'd like to go to all the temples in the world, but let's be realistic here. We've been to all the ones within reasonable driving distance except Rexburg and the new ones going up in Utah. I'm excited to visit Curtis & Lindsay in a month and Curtis is going to take me and Cameron to do baptisms at the Washington DC temple! Then when they move to Arizona I'll be able to visit them and go to all the temples there too.

2. When James graduated from law school, we made the goal to attend the temple once every month. It's been 5 years now and we have kept that goal. There was 2 months that James didn't go because he was staying home to tend the kids so I could go, but I have been every single month for 5 years. Sometimes we think that we should stop, especially with the cost of gas rising, but then a general authority will come speak to us or something will remind us of the incredible blessings we receive for attending the temple regularly -- and we really do. I know we are very blessed because of our regular temple attendance.

3. I have always wanted to be a writer. I would love to have a newspaper column like Mary Ann Hoyt does, except I wouldn't write about cooking (Heaven forbid!). I would write about parenting and running and the Olive Garden and whatever else I felt like writing about.

OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS

1. Record keeping. I am sort of crazy about this. I think that if I don't record history somehow (photos, writing, video, etc.) then it is like it didn't really happen. I am the mom who has her camera attached to one hand and the video camera attached to the other. Cameron has 8 scrapbooks, Micah has 7, Elizabeth is already on her 2nd one, etc. I keep journals for all of my kids, we have 24 dvd's of family home movies, our 13 family cd's, etc. So far my kids aren't too embarrassed by me, but I suppose that when they're teenagers I may need to tone it down a bit. I love blogging too because it's just like free scrapbooking and it takes up a lot less shelf space, but now I've been working on going back and labeling all of my posts so that my kids will be able to find the ones about them in 20 years. I so wish that I had journals of my ancestors to know what they were like when they were my age, younger, older, etc. I can completely understand why we're counseled to keep journals.

2. Multi-tasking. I'm weird about this too, but I feel like if I'm not doing at least 2 things at once I'm being lazy. And if I can do 3 or 4 things at once, that's even better.

3. Finishing projects. I am not a perfectionist, but I do get really crazy when I have an unfinished project. That is why I do my visiting teaching early in the month, because otherwise it will nag at me and bother me like crazy until I get it done. Whenever anyone asks me to do something for them I go crazy until it's done. I'll lay in bed at night worrying about the unfinished project and sometimes I even get out of bed to work on it because I figure I'm not going to get any sleep anyway.

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME

1. I am allergic to chocolate. I get hives if I eat too much of it. Once Chris & Brittany came to visit us in Laramie and I'd had a chocolate sundae from Dairy Queen the day before and I got a horrible case of hives. Poor Chris and Brittany ended up tending my kids while James took me to the ER on Thanksgiving night. That case of hives lasted more than 3 months. I would wake up every morning with hives. And I don't think I've had hives since then. I am pretty careful about how much chocolate I eat, but I do still eat chocolate.

2. I always wanted to have 16 kids. I was born on September 16th and 16 is my favorite number. So it only made sense to have 16 kids. Of course, if I had 16 kids we wouldn't all fit in our 15 passenger van. I am a little sad that I didn't get to have 16 kids, but if we count all my foster kids in with my kids then I've had 26 kids so that's not bad, eh? Actually, my hysterectomy has been a great thing (so far) and I feel at peace about our family (so far). I still LOVE babies, and I'm just adoring every minute with Elizabeth, but I do feel like our family is complete. Plus I'm going to have at least 100 grandkids.

3. I feel the genealogy bug but I am obsessed with Hester Holmes (maybe that should have gone under the last category?). She is in my Grandma Call's line and I've been looking for her parents for nearly 12 years now, but haven't had any luck. Whenever I work on genealogy I try to work on other areas but I always come back to Hester. I wish she would just pop in for a visit one day and tell me who her parents are and how I can find documentation on them. Maybe they don't want to be found? When James gave me a blessing the night before my hysterectomy he said that I needed to start working on genealogy again. I want to go to Canada and visit Vankleek Hill and find the places Hester lived and go to the cemeteries and churches and look for clues. I think this is partly why I love movies like National Treasure and the Davinci Code. It is the same sort of thing as genealogy -- finding clues and looking for family history "treasures." My patriarchal blessing says that I will be very interested in history and of things above the earth, across the earth, and under the earth, that sort of thing -- I think this is related to genealogy.

I TAG: Melissa, Julie, and Tami (Cousins, you've already been tagged! Where are your random threes???)