thoughts from my crayzdaze...: Family Letter 2022

I'm Thinking About:

February 24th

We may on occasion find ourselves in uncomfortable situations where we differ in doctrine with our acquaintances, friends, and family members. But the doctrine can never be used to justify treating others with anything less than respect and dignity. We can stand firm in our beliefs and have a loving relationship with those who hold differing opinions. It is never an either-or choice. We love and live our doctrine, and we love those who do not live it. We need not create false dichotomies. The late Elder Marvin J. Ashton shared this insight from an inspired leader: “The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people.

--Dale G. Renlund

February 2nd

Love is for it's own sake. It works only as a gift, never as a reward. It can't be earned or bartered or insured. It is a grace and it is freely given or not given at all.
...Pursue love by striving to give it rather than possess it. Coupling love and ambition fools us into approaching the whole business backwards. Rather than pursuing love by giving ourselves away, we end up trying to capture love with a new and improved version of ourselves. This sucks the freedom out of love and it sucks the joy out of excellence.

--Adam Miller

February 1st

People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. Their dogs do not disappoint them, or if they do, the owners manage to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.

--Ann Patchett

January 14th

"The way we choose to see things and respond to others makes all the difference. To do the best we can and then to choose to be happy about our circumstances, whatever they may be, can bring peace and contentment."

--President Thomas S. Monson

December 14th

Access to our Creator through our Savior is surely one of the great privileges and blessings of our lives. I have learned from countless personal experiences that great is the power of prayer. No earthly authority can separate us from direct access to our Creator. There can never be a mechanical or electronic failure when we pray. There is no limit on the number of times or how long we can pray each day. There is no quota of how many needs we wish to pray for in each prayer. We do not need to go through secretaries or make an appointment to reach the throne of grace. He is reachable at any time and any place.

--James E. Faust

November 14th

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

August 24th

I have come to realize that my Savior cares more about my growth than He does about my comfort. One evidence of His love is that He does not spare me from the suffering I need for my development and progression...

--Johnathon Sandberg, BYU professor

May 25th

Our job as parents isn't about protecting our children from all of their bad decisions. It's letting them know they have love and support to take risks and learn from their mistakes.

--Geoff Steurer, MS, LMFT

May 25th

When a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore, after having fought strong winds and rough waves which he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment, or perhaps just better luck, ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater. That’s not what boats were made for. But some of us do that to each other.

--Jeffrey Holland

March 30th

Like a fruit tree with an abundance of branches and leaves, our lives need regular pruning to ensure that we use our energy and time to accomplish our real purpose...

--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

March 29th

There is infinite comfort in the thought that the Judge knoweth all things. He knows our frailties better than we know them ourselves. He knows our temptations, our efforts to combat them and the reasons for failures, if we have failed. He knows precisely what our surroundings have been and their influence upon our character; also how much of our short-comings is due to inherited tendencies. He knows perfectly how much responsibility we must justly bear.

--probably George Reynolds

Feb 27th

"The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope."

--Timothy Keller

which reminds me a lot of:

"This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God."

--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Feb 21st

If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do. Sometimes the best people have the worst experiences, because they are the most ready to learn.

Neal A. Maxwell

October 19th

Prayer should never be a matter of trying to change God’s mind, to persuade Him of the rightness of our request, or to counsel Him as to what is best. God’s will is perfect. He knows all things and sees the end from the beginning. He knows better than we do what is best for us. Sometimes we fervently plead for the Lord to give us certain things that He knows are not ultimately in our best interest or in that of a loved one: for example, to receive a certain job offer in a specific city or to prolong the life of a terminally ill or aged family member. The first order of prayer should be to learn the will of God and be given the strength to accept it. “Thy will be done” ought to grace all prayers, as it does the Lord’s Prayer.

~~ Bruce D. Porter

September 20th

“My aim is to enjoy my children right now, to get to know them as great beings, to love and grow and learn with them – to mediate God’s love for them in their lives – so that they will recognize God’s presence here and now. That prepares them to stand at any moment in God’s presence. Because that eternal moment can come at any mortal moment. And so I find myself embracing them more, embracing life more, and relishing mortality as a fragile chance to experience joy together. There is so little time, and far too little joy.”

~~Melissa Dalton-Bradford

“My aim is to enjoy my children right now, to get to know them as great beings, to love and grow and learn with them – to mediate God’s love for them in their lives – so that they will recognize God’s presence here and now. That prepares them to stand at any moment in God’s presence. Because that eternal moment can come at any mortal moment. And so I find myself embracing them more, embracing life more, and relishing mortality as a fragile chance to experience joy together. There is so little time, and far too little joy.” - See more at: http://www.mormonwomen.com/2013/09/17/global-mom/#sthash.W0GXhH9v.dpuf

July 12th

"Given that everyone had blind spots, our greatest hope of self-correction lies in making sure that we are not operating in a hall of mirrors, in which all we see are distorted reflections of our our desires and convictions. We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back into reality if we veer too far off."

~~"Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)"

June 1st

“Remember this! The line ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right. …

~~Boyd K. Packer

April 9th

From which we might justifiably begin to conclude that the brain is acting as an intermediary to manifest your idea of soul or self but it may not be the source or originator of it…

~~Sam Parnia

April 2nd

the “veritable life” of our emotions and our relationships also is intermittent. when you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. it is an impossibility. it is even a lie to pretend to. and yet this is exactly what most of us demand. we have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. we leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. we are afraid it will never return. we insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity, when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom…one must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.

~~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

March 18th

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

~~Epicurus

February 26th

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” … [My dark side says,] I am no good… I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen -

February 9th

Now may I speak . . . to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short. . . .

. . . This feeling of inadequacy is . . . normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance. . . .

. . . This is a gospel of grand expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us.

~~Neal A. Maxwell

January 9th

“Life is made of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to live, really live… to love the journey, not the destination.”

~~Anna Quindlen

November 8th

"Do not waste time bothering whether you ʿloveʾ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him."

~~C.S. Lewis

October 7th

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

~~Thomas Merton: No Man is an Island

October 1st

Don't try to dazzle everyone with how brilliant you are. Dazzle them with how brilliant the gospel is. Don't worry about the location of the lost tribes or the Three Nephites. Worry a little more about the location of your student, what's going on in his heart, what's going on in her soul, the hunger, sometimes near-desperate spiritual needs of our people. Teach them. And, above all, testify to them. love them. Bear your witness from the depths of your soul. It will be the most important thing you say to them in the entire hour, and it may save someone's spiritual life.

~~Jeffrey R. Holland

July 6th

We come to expect God to accept our understanding of what his will ought to be and to help us fulfill that, instead of learning to see and accept his will in the real situations in which he places us daily. …The plain and simple truth is that his will is that he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people and problems. The trick is to learn to see that- not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God’s grace, but every day. Each of us has no need to wonder about what God’s will must be for us; his will for us is clearly revealed in every situation of every day….The temptation is to overlook these things as God’s will. The temptation is to look beyond these things, precisely because they are so constant, so petty, so humdrum and routine, and to seek to discover instead some other and nobler “will of God” in the abstract that better fits our notion of what his will should be.[It is] the temptation faced by everyone who suddenly discovers that life is not what he expected it to be. The answer lies in understanding that it is these things- and these things alone, here and now, at this moment- that truly constitutes the will of God. The challenge lies in learning to accept this truth and act upon it, every moment of every day.

~~Walter Ciszek

June 6th

Life will not be free from challenges, some of them bitter and hard to bear. We may wish to be spared all the trials of life, but that would be contrary to the great plan of happiness, “for it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” This testing is the source of our strength.

~~Boyd K. Packer

May 25th

Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain. … This life is an experience in profound trust—trust in Jesus Christ.

~~Elder Richard Scott

Feb 22nd

I think that it’s in this Christlike conduct and service that we present our best and most persuasive argument of our own Christianity. I know that there are those who contend that we don’t fit their particular definition of Christian orthodoxy. So be it. But our example should be such that no one can deny that the Latter-day Saints love the Savior. No one can deny that the Latter-day Saints seek to emulate the Savior. And so we demonstrate, I think, by our actions. As the Savior said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

~~Todd Christofferson

Feb 1st

Faith is not willing your own desires into existence. It’s not
concentrating on some result or believing in something you want with all your might, trying to make it come true. The first principle of the gospel is not faith in ourselves and in what we desire but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his will. When we exercise faith in him and his timing, we can be assured that all things will work together for our good, however painful they may be for us at the moment.
Real faith is knowing that the Lord loves us with all of his heart so we can trust in him with all of our hearts.

~~John Bytheway, Righteous Warriors

Jan 5th

The great task of life is to learn the will of the Lord and then do it.

~~Ezra Taft Benson

Dec 29th

Every experience God gives us, every person He puts into our lives, is the perfect preparation for a future only He can see.

~~Corrie ten Boom

Dec 18th

Yet struggles are a part of the sacred sanctification process. There are no soft or slothful ways to become sanctified to the point that we are prepared to live in the presence of the Savior

~~Elder Lionel Kendrick

Dec 14th

Revelations will probably never come unless they are desired. I think few people receive revelations while lounging on the couch or while playing cards or while relaxing. I believe most revelations would come when a man is on his tip toes, reaching as high as he can for something which he knows he needs, and then there bursts upon him the answer to his problems.

~~Spencer W. Kimball, from a letter to his son

Dec 1st

Faith, no matter how strong it is, cannot produce a result contrary to the will of him whose power it is. The exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is always subject to the order of heaven, to the goodness and will and wisdom and timing of the Lord. That is why we cannot have true faith in the Lord without also having complete trust in the Lord’s will and in the Lord’s timing. When we have that kind of faith and trust in the Lord, we have true security in our lives.

~~Dallin Oaks

November 5th

No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments."

~~George Q. Cannon

September 22nd

Faith cannot be exercised contrary to the order of heaven or contrary to the will and purposes of him whose power it is.

Men work by faith when they are in tune with the Spirit and when what they seek to do by mental exertion and by the spoken word is the mind and will of the Lord.

~~Bruce R. McConkie

September 19th

The better we know people, the harder it is to define them. The better we understand their points of view, the harder it is to see our own view as the only possible interpretation of events. The way to love our enemies is to make them human, and then to compare them not to abstract perfection but to our own humanness. Suddenly we aren't looking down on them from the heights, but across the way, from our own lowly state.

~~Dean Hughes in The Cost of Winning

September 6th

...He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. he came to save his people in their imperfection. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.

~~Chieko Okazaki

September 1st

Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us.

~~Marvin J. Ashton

August 23rd

We have a choice. We can seek for the bad in others. Or we can make peace and work to extend to others the understanding, fairness, and forgiveness we so desperately desire for ourselves. It is our choice; for whatever we seek, that we will certainly find.

Pres. Dieter Uchtdorf

August 21st

Disappointment is just the distance between Expectation and Reality.

(I have no idea who said that...)

August 11th

Happiness does not mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections...

August 4th

Revelations will probably never come unless they are desired. I think few people receive revelations while lounging on the couch or while playing cards or while relaxing. I believe most revelations would come when a man is on his tip toes, reaching as high as he can for something which he knows he needs, and then there bursts upon him the answer to his problems.

~~Spencer W. Kimball (in a letter to his son)

July 26th

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

~~Thomas S. Monson

July 22nd

My appeal is that you nurture your own physical and spiritual strength so that you have a deep reservoir of faith to call upon when tasks or challenges or demands of one kind or another come. Pray a little more, study a little more, shut out the noise and shut down the clamor, enjoy nature, call down personal revelation, search your soul, and search the heavens for the testimony that led our pioneer parents. Then, when you need to reach down inside a little deeper and a little farther to face life and do your work, you will be sure there is something down there to call upon.

~~Jeffrey Holland

July 18th

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.

~~Richard G. Scott

July 16th

Happiness as a byproduct of living your life is a great thing, but happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.

~~Barry Schwartz (professor of social theory at Swarthmore College)

July 15th

The natural man is inclined to love himself and fix others. God has asked us to do the opposite. We are to fix ourselves by repenting, and to love others.

~~Wallace Goddard

June 1st

In a church established among other reasons, for the perfecting of the Saints—an ongoing process—it is naïve to expect and certainly unfair to demand, perfection in our peers. A brief self-inventory is wise before we “cast the first stone.” Possessing a few rocks in our own heads, it is especially dangerous to have rocks too ready in our hands.

~~ Neal A Maxwell

May 19th

Although human beings are capable of being selfish, lustful, and aggressive, that is not what they are fundamentally. Beneath the surface, at the psychological and biological core of human nature, we find basic goodness and decency. When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem.

~Abraham Maslow

May 14th

If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong. On the other hand, if our lives are not centered on the Savior and his teachings, no other success can ever be permanently right.

Living the gospel does not mean the storms of life will pass us by, but we will be better prepared to face them with serenity and peace.

~Howard W. Hunter

May 2nd

You may have to disconnect in order to connect--disconnect with the world of noise to connect with silence, where God speaks to you in a different way. You cannot change our noisy world, but you can disconnect from time to time, to give yourself the gift of silence.

Being silent is one of the best ways to listen to God, not because God is not speaking to you during your noisy day, but because silence makes it easier to listen to your heart.

~ The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ

April 28th

When you have the urge to give unrequested advice (whether aloud or in your mind) or you find yourself thinking that you know what's right for someone, as yourself, Whose business am I in? Did anyone ask for my opinion? Can I know what's right for someone else? Then listen to your own advice, and know that you're the one it's meant for. Stay in your own business and be happy.

~Byron Katie

April 13th

In order to experience peace instead of conflict, it is necessary to shift our perception. Instead of seeing others as attacking us, we can see them as fearful. We are always experiencing love or fear. Fear is really a call for help and therefore a request for love. It is apparent then that in order to experience peace we do have a choice in determining the way we perceive things.

~~Gerald Jampolsky

April 5th

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire...

~~Orson F. Whitney

April 1

The first and most elementary test of one's call to the religious life...is the willingness to accept life in a community in which everybody is more or less imperfect.

~~Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

March 30th

And pray for them, too. In my experience, it's easier to agape someone you dislike (or who dislikes you) when you pray for them. Because when you pray for them, God often opens your heart to seeing people the way that God sees them, rather than the way you see them. And you can often have pity for people who may be filled with anger toward you.

~~Rev. James Martin in the Huffington Post

March 29th

Happiness can exist only when we make our own choices and learn and grow from them--including the foolish, stupid, and inconsiderate choices, the ones that affect other people in negative ways.

The price we pay for being allowed to make our choices, and to learn from them and to grow and to become happy, is that other people must be allowed to make their choices too--including the ones we don’t like. We’re all learning together as we make our choices, and in the process it is simply unavoidable that we will get in each other’s way. We will inconvenience each other and sometimes hurt each other. There is no other way to learn and be happy.

~~Greg Baer

March 24th

We have a choice. We can seek for the bad in others. Or we can make peace and work to extend to others the understanding, fairness, and forgiveness we so desperately desire for ourselves. It is our choice; for whatever we seek, that we will certainly find.

~~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

March 17th

It is only when we yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit that we can hope to overcome the natural man-- who wants to control, is self-indulgent and absorbed, rarely if ever wants what is good for him, and is impatient, egotistical, and demanding.

~~Sheri Dew

March 9th

Do not act out of anger. Act from love, or not at all.

~~The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards

March 6th

We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves.

~~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

March 5th

If our lives and our faith are centered upon Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong. On the other hand, if our lives are not centered on the Savior and his teachings, no other success can ever be permanently right.

~~Howard W. Hunter

March 4th

(I've been listening to Sheri Dew talks in the car, and really, could post most of what she says here! But here is one little bit that really stuck with me today.)

The best way I know to strengthen our personal testimonies and protect ourselves from evil is to seek to have as many experiences with the Lord as possible.

~~Sheri Dew

March 3rd
Perhaps the commonest form of charity is simple forgiveness. In our families and friendship circles, we are invited to do what Jesus did better than any of us: set aside all charges against the people in our lives. Set aside the ways they have disappointed us. See past the weakness and frailties to the hopes and intentions of our fellow travelers. Jesus invites us to see each other redemptively.

~~~Wally Goddard

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Family Letter 2022

Happy New Year! 2022 was an amazing year for our family, filled with many beautiful adventures and a few difficult ones as well. I’m excited to be able to tell you about it in this format, with lots of pictures. (If you're reading this on your phone and wish the pictures showed up bigger--you can click on the picture and then enlarge it.)

Sadly we were all together only once in 2022, at the beach in North Carolina. But our week together was terrific, and thankfully we've had other time together in smaller groups throughout the year.

Back: Kate, Cindy Lynn, Mahon, Josh, Jason, Danny, Ruth, Rachel
Front: Jenna, Cindy, Russ, Ashley, Jared

Russ had quite the year. In his job at Intel he’s been the manager of a small group with just 2 other people that supports a much larger group. As a manager he’s had to take all sorts of different trainings, figure out how best to use the resources available to give his co-workers raises and bonuses, and finally in this last part of the year to worry about who was still going to have a job going in to the next year. After months of worry we found out just this afternoon that he is still employed, but the experience has been so unsettling that we are still going forward with our photo organizing business.

Russ’s favorite parts of the year (I don’t even have to ask him this!) were spent looking at the ocean. After our week at the beach with our kids and our friends’ kids we spent another week in a small condo with just our friends. As our families have gotten older/bigger/grandchildren we’ve realized that we don’t have a lot of time to hang out with our friends at the beach like we used to, so this second week has been wonderful. He also enjoyed spending time with me in the beautiful ocean of Hawaii in October. By then we already knew that there was a possibility of layoffs, but the trip was already paid for so we figured we might as well have a last hurrah if that’s what it turned out to be. We spent hours every day in the ocean looking at the fish and true to his turtle whisperer nickname, he found one turtle on our very last snorkel. Besides cooking great Sunday dinners for us every week, Russ’s other favorite hobby has been watching families on YouTube who live on sailboats and sail around the world.

My 2022 was a year that felt very “best of times/worst of times.” I spent the whole year having online book clubs with different groups of women that were just wonderful and fed my soul. In the early spring my NC book club reunion was back in Durham, and it was terrific. I spent some time in Utah with our families, and in September took a wonderful trip to CT to spend a week with Jason, Ruth, and (especially, of course) Danny! I had looked forward to that visit for months, but did not expect that it would be my second trip there of the year.

(Healthy) time with Danny in Sept.

In June I’d convinced Cindy Lynn to go on a once in a lifetime trip to swim with dolphins in the Bahamas. Not a choreographed dolphin swim, but going out on the ocean every afternoon with a guide who was very knowledgeable about dolphin behavior and getting in the water when we found calm, interested dolphins. It was a beautiful trip, but also much more exertion than either of us had expected. I wasn’t feeling great by the time we left Bimini, and then the air conditioner in the Miami airport was broken and I felt even worse. Our plane left Miami late and we missed our connection for Portland at JFK. Before we were able to get our bags and make it to our hotel near JFK, I had started throwing up. The first year we lived in Oregon I had a bad experience with a supplement that caused gastritis, and I found out that I have something called cyclical vomiting syndrome. Which just means that once I've started throwing up, I can't stop. I haven’t thought of it much in the intervening years, but that night I desperately wished I was traveling with medication. In the middle of the night I went to the ER there in Queens, and let’s just say that the ER in Queens is a whole different ball game than the ER here in little Hillsboro! Back at the hotel, Cindy Lynn had fortunately packed an extra day of all of the different medications she needs to deal with her cystic fibrosis, but she knew she still had to fly home that day. She called Jason in Connecticut and told him that he needed to come to the hotel so that he could pick me up from the hospital when I was discharged. Then I laid in the dark hotel room for 2 days until I felt strong enough to ride a shuttle 2 hrs to New Haven, where I pretty much laid in their bed (or occasionally on the floor) for the next week. I didn’t eat for a week, lost 13 lbs, and it took me a full month to feel recovered after I got home. It was the kind of misery I wouldn’t wish on anyone and I was unbelievably grateful to have kids who took such good care of me.

Cindy Lynn & I surrounded by sting rays!

Cindy Lynn spent the year working on her next book, No Matter the Distance, which comes out February 21st and will be the first-ever traditionally published novel about cystic fibrosis that’s by an author with CF. She has gotten really interested in trees and plants and particularly making medicinal salves from them. When covid rates were low in 2022 they traveled to Connecticut to visit Jason's family, and in the fall to Utah and Idaho. Cindy Lynn is my favorite kid because she came to swim with dolphins with me in the Bahamas. She still homeschools 9-year-old Kate, who loves reading, art, and knows more about cats than most adults.

Cindy Lynn, Kate, and Mahon

Cindy Lynn’s husband, Mahon, graduated this summer with a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence from Georgia Tech. Mahon spent 11 months of the year designing software for a company that helps organize clinical trials, but was unexpectedly laid off at the beginning of December. He’s seeing this as a blessing in disguise since now he has more time to work on his robotic pantry while he's looking for a new job. I have had to stop doubting Mahon–every time he says he’s going to make something amazing or fantastic I secretly doubt him and then he always does it! So I’m looking forward to the unveiling of the robotic pantry one day and am ready to offer up mine as a beta installation.

Touring Yale--Jason with Danny in the stroller,
Mahon behind Cindy Lynn in her wheelchair holding Kate

Jason, Ruth, and Danny (19 months) are having a mostly grand old time in Connecticut! Jason is finishing up his final year of his Chemistry PhD and is VERY ready to get out of the "hell hole" that is grad school and find a job in biotech where they "treat people like people." We are excited for him to have that too! In his non-school time he loves video games, board games, his new calling as choir director, and painting mini figurines that go with one of his games.

Ruth, Danny, and Jason

Ruth on the other hand absolutely loves her job leading the marketing team at Cogstate. She has recently taken up embroidery as a hobby, loves reading, a good Zumba workout, and all things Disney+. Danny is ALL toddler and an adorable "agent of chaos"! He aggressively loves books, singing, and dumping all items out of any container in his path. Jason is my favorite child, as he came and rescued me in NYC, and let me hang out with cute Danny while I was recovering. And by hang out I mean lay on the couch and watch him play mostly, since at that point reading him one book was enough to wipe me out for a whole day!

Josh, Jared, and Jason

Josh is working at Intel and sharing a house with a friend about 20 minutes away from us. We love that he comes over for Sunday dinner every week and several times during the week to spend time with Tiger. He still loves snowboarding as much as he can at Mount Hood, and surfing at the coast. Mt Hood has one of the longest snowboarding seasons, and Josh was able to snowboard and surf in the same month last summer! Josh is my favorite child because he comes to hang out with Tiger and clean the litter box several times a week.

Josh & Rachel after a day of surfing at the coast

Rachel is working on her final year of classes at BYUI. She'll walk at graduation in April and then student teach in the fall. In the summer she taught swimming lessons in the neighborhood every morning and worked at Jersey Mike's in the afternoons. She enjoyed surfing with Josh over the summer and she and Jenna got together with one of their high school friends regularly to twirl their rifles. She has better roommates this year which we're enormously grateful for. Rachel is my favorite child because she's always happy to watch a chick flick or Christmas movie with me.

Rachel

Jenna switched her major to software engineering in 2022. She was such a good summer employee at Jersey Mikes that the whole place basically fell apart when she and Rachel left! Jenna has had great roommates she connected with through Instagram this school year, and they’ve become some of her favorite people. She enjoys playing guitar, volunteering at the cat shelter, and taking pole dancing classes (but not, she adds, “in a stripper way”). She got to see her favorite band, Greta Van Fleet, in concert, and painted a cool jacket to wear there. Jenna is my favorite child because she's always happy to go hiking with me, and hiking is definitely one of my love languages.

Jenna

Jared loves snowboarding and has been able to teach snowboarding at Sundance for the last two winters. Last winter, he went snowboarding more than one hundred days! He also spent a lot of time rock climbing, as well as hiking and camping with his wife Ashley, this summer. They built a bed into the back of their Ford Escape for a great camping setup. Jared worked at a physical therapy clinic for a lot of this year. He’s still at BYU, but hoping to graduate in a little over a year with a degree in exercise science. Jared is my favorite child because he sends me beautiful pictures from the snowy mountains.

Ashley & Jared

Speaking of Ashley we're so happy to be able to report that her leg has healed and she is back to normal. Being hit by the car in the first half year of their marriage added a lot of stress to that first year, and they have loved being able to do fun things together this last year. Ashley is going to school at UVU studying recreation management and also working in the office at Sundance. She loves houseplants, makes cool original embroidery, and is always practicing her snowboarding.

We hope you've enjoyed the picture-heavy version of the annual Ray family newsletter! We love keeping in touch with each of you and love when we get to hear what you've been up to. Thanks for being a part of our lives,

Russ, Cindy, & co.

Jared, Cindy Lynn, Josh, Rachel, Jason, & Jenna

Contact info:
Russ russray@gmail.com
Cindy crayz2sew@gmail.com
Cindy Lynn storygirlcindy@gmail.com
Mahon (and his robotic pantry ideas) mbbaldwin@gmail.com
Russ & Cindy's photo organizing business:
RCphotosolutions@gmail.com or RCphotosolutions.com

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Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Family Letter 2022

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