Easter 2013

 Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt at the Spauldings. Each family contributed 12 eggs per child attending, and the Spauldings went to a bunch of businesses for coupons and other prizes as well. It was awesome!

 Sophie, Lucas Spaulding and Spencer all lined up, ready to go!

 Sophie and Brooke Ricks showing off their baskets.

And on to Salt Lake and Nana and Papa's House for Spring Break! Of course we hit the zoo, and its amazing new Sea Lion and Polar Bear exhibits...

 ...and Pioneer State Park, another of our favorite SL stops. And yes, Nana's the best!

 Learning to write their names with the Deseret alphabet in the schoolhouse.

 Uh oh, Spencer's getting punished! What did you do this time, buddy? :-)

 Baby animals everywhere! Including a 20-minute old baby goat!

 Panning for "gold" - always a favorite activity. This time we also got to talk to a "mountain man" who told us all about their survival techniques and living quarters. Fascinating! I love this park!

 Tapping leather.

And, to top it off, Conference was during our spring break this year! Thanks to Papa's connection with President Monson, who always gives us great Conference tickets, Gary and the girls got to sit with all the GA families right up front for the Sunday morning session. Pretty darn awesome! We are so lucky. So many blessings in our lives.

Ch Ch Ch Changes.... Or Not

One of the reasons I got so behind in blogging was a big decision we had to make back in March; it sucked out every ounce of my energy and already limited brain power to deal with it.  The Job at BYU, the one we've been eying for for a decade,  became available, and Gary went down to Provo to interview for it.

So would it be this?









Or this?








We lost more sleep over this decision than we have over any other single decision in our entire marriage. Painful. And no direct answers, which means that the Lord wanted us to work it out for ourselves. And (we hope) that he would be happy with either.

We agonized for two weeks, fasting, praying, going to the temple. We were trying to force ourselves to fit into the path we had always foreseen for our family, which was BYU Provo. But there were some definite cons to moving south, including the stupor of thought and a considerable pay decrease. Once we came to grips that we did not have to do down there simply because it was expected of us, the choice became fairly clear.

In the end, this is what we sent out to our family:

Dear All,

Well, it finally came - the job offer to take over the folk dance team at BYU. And we have turned it down to stay here at BYU-Idaho. It was a painful decision, but we have finally found peace with our answer. It took weeks of praying, fasting, and talking within our family until we were blue in the face and sick of the subject. The answer didn't come right away, and it really surprised us when it did. We had to piece together feelings we've increasingly had over the past year that BYU was not where we needed to be. Gary sensed when he interviewed in February that it was a no-go. Which was weird. We always thought we'd end up there, and we're still trying to get our heads around the fact that we are now Idahoans for the foreseeable future. Luckily we like it here. We are small-town kind of people. Rexburg is an awesome place to raise kids, Gary has great job satisfaction, and there's no place we'd rather be at the end of days. :-) We know Gary can do important work here at the college and he is definitely needed and valued here. The program in Provo will continue as it always has, whereas if he left Rexburg, it's pretty much guaranteed that BYUI's world dance department would cease to exist.

So there you have it. Staying here is right for our family. At least for now. Maybe if they offer us the directorship of the Polynesian Cultural Center we can go over to Oahu for a few years and you can all come visit! Or maybe we'll get called to another, as yet unknown destination. The Lord has handed us some wild, crazy, wonderful adventures and we have learned so much from all of them. And hope to learn from many more. 

love you all,

Mindy and Gary and fam

The reaction to this news was generally stupefied disbelief, but after that initial reaction most of the people who really care about us were very supportive (though I think Pete still thinks we're crazy). So there you have it, and here we stay! For now...

Catching Up...

... okay, so I'm a little behind. We are finally over our crazy intense spring and summer and life is slowing down a bit. Expect a flurry of updates in the next week or two! Strangely enough, I noticed that in spite of my complete radio silence on here, by blog still attracted over 200 views last month (my family desperately hoping I'd blog about our many adventures, most likely). I'm sorry I've been delinquent, but, here goes. I'll start drafting entries tonight.

Extravadance Spring 2013

Every three or four years, Gary gets put in charge of BYUI's traveling dance team, Dance Alliance. Last time he had the team, he put together the amazing Journey concert that went on tour to Russia. This year he selected Kinetic Canvas for his theme. Every dance is inspired by a masterpiece of visual art or literature. For example, he had a romantic ballet choreographed to include scenes from Desgas' ballet canvases; a passionate contemporary routine depicting the mad genius of van Gogh; a floppy pillow sleeping-dancer dance to Dali's Persistence of Memory; a country/city ballroom number to Renoir's paintings of the same name; and a surreal piece with floating apples to mimic Magritte's Son of Man.

 

The Dance Alliance year is always a crazy year for us. It entails rehearsals most nights and Saturdays, long hours and lots of performance, endless show development, costume creation and cutting music. He has to have a show ready about ten weeks after the team is initially chosen; luckily the Collegiate contemporary, ballroom ans world teams also help out with that first concert in March. By the end of June the tour show has to be done, and that's all Dance Alliance. We are so excited for that show, the full expression of Gary's vision. The finale is my especial favorite - but more on that later. 

In the meantime, this first show went amazingly, surprisingly well. The audience loved the interaction between the dances and the artwork, which Gary had hung up around audience on the theater walls. He even had some art students from the figure drawing class come and create new artwork inspired by our dances and dancers. Very cool. The Renoir waltz Wallfowers and Dali pillow dance were big hits, but the dance which got the most rave reviews, much to our gratification, was the Chinese suite, Five Sacred Elements. I helped choreograph and teach two sections (fan/wood and star/metal) of the six so I was heavily invested as well, so to hear it praised was like having my child complimented. :-) Especially meaningful was this letter, below, from Kevin Brower, dean of the college and Gary's boss at BYUI:

Gary,

Thank you for your work in tonight's Extravadance performance of The Kinetic Canvas.  I appreciated and was deeply moved by the many numbers in the concert which showcased a real commitment to grace, elegance, and pure joy.  I loved every piece you choreographed but my absolute favorite moment in the concert was The Five Sacred Elements.  I confess I was somewhat surprised by the intensity of joy that welled up inside me as I witnessed your thoughtful choreography and the students' portrayal of such exquisite beauty.  The number was so tastefully done that it truly helped lift the dross of everyday life from my soul.  I really needed that tonight.  Please pass along my thanks to Mindy and Rebekah.

I also felt your use of visual art was brilliant.  I watched in awe as, during intermission, audience members quickly went to the artwork hanging on the wall.  I loved seeing people point at the paintings and give others a knowing nod as they identified a particular dance.  That was a great idea.  Bravo!

I hope you feel some sense of satisfaction in the work you are doing.  I am in awe of what you are accomplishing.  It is wonderful to associate with you and experience your care, grace, and tasteful expression of the potential goodness  art has to offer.  You are truly a blessing to our college and the lives of the students with whom you associate. Thank you for helping our students better understand their ability and even responsibility to refine their art in a way to counter the world's view of art as simply self-expression and the seemingly ceaseless need to communicate darkness, tension, confusion, and common banality.  I am grateful you bring us light, hope, and beauty.

Kevin

We are so lucky that Gary has such a wonderful job. He loves it, he's inspired by it, he's phenomenal at it, and he does so much good. His students ADORE him and want to do the best for him that they can. It's a crazy year, yes, but it's full of blessings, new friends, opportunities to grow and become, and amazing experiences!

and yes, all of this was going on THE SAME WEEKEND as the Pocatello competition. NUTS! But we survived. And it was great!

Team Dances

Maggie's Team dances (Gary was her teacher):

Tricky (she's the little one on the end at the right, drowning in her very big shirt)


On the Job A'Capella (again, she's on the right, in overalls)



Gary's other Two Dances, the Young Adult Team Dances (because we loved them):

Demented Circus



Egyptian:

A Big Weekend

Ah, the Pocatello clogging competition - one of the biggest events of the year for our Footworks Dance Studio. Two crazy days of running around, madly gathering and rehearsing dancers, and throwing them on and off stage. To make things even more complicated, BYUI went ahead and scheduled Gary's biggest college show of the semester, Extravadance, the SAME WEEKEND. Which means I couldn't help him up there and he couldn't be with us in Poky. INSANITY! But everything went really well, on all fronts. We were lucky, and we had a lot of supportive parents and great dancers!

 My little Sophie did two dances with her team (Supercal and Crazy Little Thing Called Love) and a freestyle. She is such a precious, adorable little performer. Loves to dance, loves to be on stage, loves to be with her friends for a fun weekend. Look how poised and ready she is for her freestyle, below. All the other kids had pre-choreographed freestyles that they've rehearsed for months before competition. Not my Soph! She prefers to do it the old fashioned way - she actually makes it up as she goes along, which is ten times harder. Again, she continues to astound me with her poise, courage, talent and sweet charm. And look how tall and beautiful she is (in the purple top and black pants, below)! She is a joy to watch on stage and always knows what step is next. Pretty sure she's ready for her aha! year.

Sophie's team, and all the other beginning and intermediate teams, danced on Friday march 15th. Since Gary wasn't there, I came stocked with games, treats, and the dvd player for Maggie and Spence to while away the hours. (I could happily just sit in the theater and watch the dancing all day long, but Spence... not so much.) We were there until about 9:30 PM, then went to our hotel, the Ameritel, and went swimming - definitely the perk of the weekend! And Daddy came down from Rexburg and joined us late that night after his show! Hooray for dad!

Saturday morning dawned and we all awoke to Spencer's barky cough. Good thing I always pack along his prednisone! So we dosed him up, then went and got our excellent hotel breakfast - the kids love the waffles, eggs and bacon. Since Dad was there, we went swimming again, then returned to the theater in time to see the Pro individual events. Next came Maggie's jazz and lyrical, and the advanced and champ teams danced rawther late Satuday night, after the 6th annual fire alarm drill/building evacuation ritual. 6 out of 8 years, they've had a fire alarm go off! Anyway, aside from a few episodes of Spencer whining and hanging on my leg while I was trying to get teams on and off stage, it was a very fun weekend and very successful too. Our dancer Parker Stone won top Idaho Male Freestyle, the YA dances Egyptian and Demented Circus won high golds, and ALL of our dances won first place rankings. Granted, they weren't judging very hard, but we never have yet come home with ALL first places until this year.  And we won trophies for Egyptian, Senior's a'capella, and overall beginning team wins. Not a bad cache... if awards were our motivation. Which really, they're not. We want the dancers to dance because they love it, not because they can win a trophy. But since we do this competition, it's nice to do well.

Now for Maggie's individual events - technically she has a long way to go, but on stage she BRINGS it. She is a dynamite performer! In spite of her sickle feet and shaky pirouettes, she is so fun to watch. The technique will come, but teaching someone how to perform is so much harder. Get this girl on stage and she absolutely lights up. She's already miles beyond what I was at her age.

How I Use My Essential OIls

As some of you know, I've signed up to be a doTerra essential oils consultant, not to sell the oils but to get them at the wholesale cost. I've wanted to learn more about oils since I saw one of our dancer's moms using them all the time when we were on tour in France. So I got myself the Family Physician's kit for Christmas, and am now a true believer! Not that I dislike or distrust modern medicine - I like anything that works. But if I can cure something at home without having to run to the doctor (who always just seem to prescribe antibiotics anyway), or keep my house clean with non-toxic cleaners, or not spread chemical-laden lotions all over my body when lovely-smelling, alkaline, antibacterial coconut oil works better anyway, so be it!

I will still be the first one in line though when it comes time to get an epidural during child birth. I'm not THAT crazy.


Here are some of the ways I've used them so far:

 

*mood lifting - take a whiff of peppermint, Citrus bliss or Breathe.  Put drops on a cotton ball or hanky to keep scent nearby, like on your pillow at bedtime. The oils, plus the deep breathing, can help head off a headache.
*one drop of lemon in a glass of ice water... ahhhh
*night facial moisturizer: a dime's worth of coconut or almond oil, with two drops of melaleuca (tee tree) oil and and a drop of lavender, every night. Add a drop of frankincense during troubled times. Best thing for adult acne that I've ever found!
*3-4 drops of lemon oil in my sink with a natural dish soap (Swanson's brand is good) to wash dishes. Our dish washer is currently "broken" right now (ie we want our kids to do the dishes by hand as manual labor is good for the soul :-) ) so this is what we use.
*2-3 drops of Citrus Bliss on dryer sheets in my drawers makes for fresh smelling socks and unders
*OnGuard in my diffuser keeps Gary healthy! And we used Breathe in it last night in the kids' room since they all have coughs. Didn't hear a cough all night. This morning yes, but not last night.
*coconut oil, baking soda and Citrus bliss blended for deodorant. When I feel like I smell gross, I rub the mixture all over my body (usually without the baking soda though). Or you can use the following deodorant recipe:
 http://www.lexienaturals.com/2012/08/simple-homemade-deodorant.html
*Natural cleaner (works on windows):
16 oz. Spray Bottle (you can purchase one here.)
1 1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup distilled water
8 drops of any citrus oil of your choice (could use Lemon, Lime, Grapefruit, Wild Orange, or a combination)
*I also use Purify in a spray bottle to clean counters
*mix 1 cup baking soda with 10 drops peppermint and spread generously on mattresses, carpets, in a vehicle, anywhere. Let sit for an hour and then vacuum. Sanitizes stuff, keeps beds free from bugs, etc, and smells heavenly!
*few drops of lavendar or citrus bliss on dryer sheets (or wool dryer balls, which I just received from Amazon and will try out soon) to help laundry smell purty
*one drop basil on a cotton ball in your ear, with a drop of melaleuca just in front of your ear, will knock out an ear infection
*soak a tampon with coconut oil, 2 drops lavender,  and 2 drops melaleuca  and say goodbye to yeast infections. Also works on itching.
*drops of lime in any food or beverage requiring a lime taste, like in mint or Brazillian lemonade, or chicken tortilla soup.