White Stuff

I'm not even going to try to pretend that I'm not bothered by a snow storm on April 28-29, but I guess I might as well document it and try not to cry!

Kindness

Lift Where You Stand

This is a confession post.  (Gotta love these ones!!).  A few years ago at a songwriting conference, I heard this line several times, "Lift where you stand."  To be honest, it annoyed me like no other, it taunted me.  But, over the past few years, slowly I have grown to love this quote.  When I was little I remember telling my Mom I wanted to sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, then after I aged a little and realized no one, including myself, liked to hear me sing, I told her I was going to play their organ....I had this unquenchable desire to share music with the whole world.

I don't want to get long winded as it is late and I have been way too long winded lately, but what are your thoughts about "lifting where you stand" versus "dreaming big"?  Just lately I have, I think for the first time, wholeheartedly embraced my role as a wife and mother of five and let some of my other dreams go to the backseat and others into the dumpster where they belong.  I think it is a fine line to figure out, but I am truly so, so grateful for my children and my honest and gentle and supportive husband and best friend.  I will try to be better at being grateful I have opportunities to lift where I stand and serving those who surround me and who I love the very most!  I think I'm too tired to make much sense tonight, so I'm off to bed on a windy Cedar City night.

P.s.  I'm glad I get to rock out when I'm all alone :)

and glad I get to teach piano lessons.  It is such a blessing to me!  Love those kiddos!

"The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and trusth.  None other can adequately take her place." 
~Gordon B. Hinckley

My "Grand" Piano

Ok, I'm warning you right now that this is another post for me.  Here goes:  Back in a Book of Mormon class at Ricks College, my professor called on me and asked me to name a material item that I really wanted to acquire in my life.  I told him "Nothing" a couple of times (I was sweet back then, now I could give him a list!! :)  )  He kept pushing the question.  He told me that the Lord wanted to bless us with our needs but also some of our wants, so I finally told him I wanted a grand piano.  And a grand piano I certainly do have. 

When I was dating Ryan, his family had a piano in their basement that they let me play on.  When we got engaged, his parents told us that we could have it.  I was ecstatic.  I knew I would go crazy insane if I didn't have one to play on the rest of my life.  Playing the piano is my therapy....Even though I was thrilled, I had no idea about the history behind this gem of mine.  This past weekend, my son, Devon, got ordained to be a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, and Grandpa Henrie came down to share the moment with us and stand in the circle.  Later Sunday evening I asked him to tell me all the details of our piano, and here they are.  I LOVE that it is old and that it has such a rich history and been in the homes of so many Henries! 

From what a piano tuner once looked up for me, the piano was built in the 1890s.  The piano's first home was in the Blue Pine Hotel in Panguitch, Utah, owned by Ryan's great, great grandmother, Mary Crosby.  It was the first hotel in Panguitch.  (As a cool side note, Butch Cassidy's mother was a maid there, and Butch used to sneak in there to visit her once in a while).  Mary was a widow, and when she sold the hotel, she took the piano out and gave it to her youngest daughter, Beulah Crosby Allen.  Beulah taught piano lessons on it.  It was an old player piano, originally 2 feet taller than it is now.  Eventually Beulah gave it to her daughter, Cleo Henrie (Ryan's grandmother) when her daughters, Marie and Cleola, were teenagers and thought they might want to learn how to play it.  It originally had ebony and ivory keys, but one day a gentleman came through Panguitch and offered to replace the whole keyboard with plastic (I think) keys if he could keep the ebony and ivory that had worn down in parts, so Cleo agreed.  When Ryan's Dad got married, his father-in-law, David Braithwaite, was a talented carpenter and specialized in cutting down old player pianos and refinishing them, so he cut the piano down, took out the player parts, and refinished it.  It then went back to Panguitch until Ryan's family moved to Grantsville.  At that time, Cleo gave it to Ryan's parents so that if any of their children wanted to learn to play the piano they would have the opportunity.  It was stored in a granary for a year in Grantsville, and then later was moved to American Fork.  When they moved to Provo and Ryan's Dad got hired at BYU, it was then stored in a garage outside their Provo home for several years until it made its way down into their basement.  That is where it was when I met Ryan.  It has moved with Ryan and I eight times now, to three homes in Provo, one in Springville, one in Driggs, Idaho, and three homes in Cedar City.  When we pulled up to our rental home in Driggs, Ryan saw all of the steps up to the front porch and said there was no way we could get the piano in there.  The piano weight wise is a beast, but I told him we weren't going to get rid of it and that I would find a way.  We drove up the road and passed a house, and I told him to stop and that I was going to go knock on the door of this stranger's house and see if there was anyone that lived there that could help us.  Ryan thought I was crazy.  I knocked on the door, and it turned out to be the home of the bishop of the ward, Larell Kunz.  He kindly called some more men and they hauled the piano in the house :).  (Another side note, Larell and Deanne Kunz are still some of our dearest friends to this day,  We are SO glad we met them there!!) 

Truly it is my "grand piano"!  I honestly don't know what I'd do without it.  It is one of my most treasured worldly possessions, and I think I'll bawl or be royally ticked off if there are no pianos in heaven or hell, wherever I end up!  

I hope it stays in our family for generations to come and that they will appreciate the generations of hands that have touched its keys.  Last summer, Ryan and his Dad so kindly refinished it in a rustic black for me.  (Devon had carved his name and all sorts of other lovely artwork into it with a nail when we lived in Driggs.)  Here is my baby:

Thanks for enduring my history lesson, but I don't ever want to forget her beautiful story ;)

Kolob Canyon - who knew?

The weather was gorgeous today, and I was just ready to get OUT of the house!  I grew up where all I could see in most any direction was untamed land: sagebrush, cactus, and sand, and most of the time there was wind along with that.  I didn't realize how much I loved it all until I left it for city life.  But, it's in my blood and in my bones, and every chance I get to take the kids on an outing, I love to take them where they can be "wild and free"; free to explore, climb, and learn all about this fantastic earth we're on with all its little critters and creations.  A friend had told me about Kolob Canyon this week.  I didn't know it existed!  It took me 16 minutes to get there, and it is a Utah National Park.  This week you could get into any national park free, so I thought it was worth checking out.  We loved it!!  The weather was perfect, and of course the lizards were the kids' favorite part of it all.  I took way too many pictures, but I narrowed it down to these ones.....oh, and Devon and Dallin brought one of their best friends along.  He's a great kid!

No One Can Take Our Place

Today I got to attend a Cedar City women's conference with guest speaker, Sheri Dew.  I just want to mention a few things she spoke about.  Sheri is such a terrific public speaker!  So funny, real, down-to-earth, and motivational.  Love her.  Her theme was about how no one else can fulfill our mission in life, no one can take our place, and we need to fulfill our missions with courage.  She told us that it is impossible to quantify the impact/effect that one righteous woman can have on humanity and the generations that follow after her.  She mentioned four sure-fire ways to diminish the influence of women or in other words tactics that Satan uses to try and get us to lose our focus.

1.  We need to support and sustain one another.  Judging and criticizing others will hold us back.

2.  Find out who we really are and how God the Father really feels about us.  Learn your true identity.  Satain will do everything in his power to confuse our identity.

3.  Study and learn about the encompassing power of Jesus Christ's atonement and realize the magnitude and depth of what it can do for us in our lives.  Satan wants us to misunderstand the atonement.

4.  Be willing to learn the language of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost.  Practice listening.  It is like learning a foreign language, it takes a time and practice and effort to learn to hear the voice of the Lord.  Satan doesn't want us to hear the Spirit of Christ.

ok, she said lots of other things, and those aren't her exact words, just what I can gather and remember from my notes.  Sometimes it's hard to believe we have a divine destiny and that we do have a significant mission to fulfill here on earth, but today I got a glimpse and was re-inspired to keep trying to do what I was born to do!  No one can take your place! 

Answer to prayers

Yesterday something bizarre happened that I am chalking up to an answer to prayer and a blessing of tithing.  Out of the blue a lady from bookkeeping at our company's bank called Ryan up and said that she had a check for R&R Cabinets from back in 2008 that had never been put through our account.  She told us to check our books and call us back.  Ryan remembered doing the job and remembered telling the guy that he hadn't fully paid us, but the contractor had disagreed with Ryan and so Ry had written off the amount he still owed.  After some phone calls back and forth with us and the contractor, she told us from all the documentation that she had that the check belonged to us, and she direct deposited it into our account.  It was the exact amount we needed to pay our house payment and cover our employees paychecks.  Jobs have been getting a little scarce at the cabinet shop, so it was a kind and gracious miracle in our eyes.  Two years later???  That bookkeeper deserves a BIG raise!  It's amazing the difference one person can make!

One more thing, one of our most darling of all darling widowed neighbor ladies who is like a grandma to us brought over some gingerbread this past week.  I have actually never tasted gingerbread, just the cookies I think.  It was SOOO good, wow!  We couldn't stop eating it!  The word I keep thinking of is earthy to describe it or authentic or something, I don't know, it was just so delicious!!  I'm putting the recipe on here so I have a back-up copy.  You should try it; it's worth buying the molasses for (something I don't keep in my pantry!).  It is moist and yummmmmmmy!

Gingerbread

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter

2 slightly beaten eggs

1/2 c. molasses

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

1 tsp. each ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves

1 scant tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 c. boiling water

Cream sugar and butter, add eggs, add molasses and vanilla.  Mix well.  Sift together flour, soda, spices, and salt.  Stir in boiling water.  Pour into two greased, floured loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out barely clean.

Thank you so much Sis. Laub!!!

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm

Check out this e-mail I just got....

REBECCA L HENRIE
973 S 860 W
CEDAR CITY UT 84720-3666

Dear REBECCA:

Thank you (no, Thank RYAN) for your recent applications  for the Big Game Drawing. Your results are: Appl # Hunt # Result---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

390192 362 ELK BULL SUCCESSFUL for hunt 362 PANGUITCH LAKE (EARLY) ????The heck????

390194 970 ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT UNSUCCESSFUL390193 989

GENERAL BUCK UNSUCCESSFUL---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok, so we all know what an elk is....

My sweet husband has been trying for 10 years to get the opportunity to shoot a bull elk.  There's some point system that I don't understand in the division of wildlife resources.  You earn a point a year and the more years you have been trying to draw out, the more points you have.  Something like that.......Our bishop has been trying for 16 years and just got his first tag this year.  Apparently Ryan has put me in for 2 years and I just drew out?!?  Ryan said he didn't know whether to cry because he still doesn't get to shoot one or to laugh because the odds of me drawing out were so stinking slim it's funny.  Ok, I feel exactly the same way, to laugh or to cry, except not for the same reasons!!  I mortally wounded a rabbit once that cried and made me about cry and then Ryan had to finish it off.  Beyond that, all I have killed are grasshoppers when I was in 5th grade and used to pull their legs off and feed them to my cat (okay, sick I know!!  my brothers warped me :) ), spiders, mice, ants, wasps, bees.  I think that's it.  Can I shoot a magnificent elk??  First of all, target practice is not my forte, second of all, the gun you have to use to shoot it is stinking heavy, and last of all, I think I'll cry to see it die!  I'll have to close my eyes and point and shoot like Ry's Dad taught me once!  So, there you have it.  Ryan told me I better act excited or else, so I complied and did an awesome victory dance for him, and the Bishop called me up and said that if I get a bigger elk than him I have to speak in church every Sunday for a month, so game on!!

Can't you just see me this fall, bathed in a bloody elk skin, antlers across my shoulders, hiking down the mountain in glory??

(one of Ryan's buddies)

or

posing with my children with an oh-so-attractive elk skull?

(one of Ryan's buddies' elk skulls!)

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Ugh

I started out the day wrong.  First sleep deprived and then trying to help Devon with his math homework at 7 a.m.  Poor kid.  I got so frustrated and impatient with him and then very frustrated and impatient with myself for being so frustrated and impatient...Ryan has had some sort of pinched nerve in his neck and hasn't been able to sleep much the past two nights.  I don't like the person I am when I can't control my terrible grumpiness when I'm tired. Sigh.  As I look around the house I see stacks of laundry and messes everywhere.  I'm hoping that if I crank the music and take a shower I can at least dig a trail to the washer so I can start to get caught up.  Here is my laundry room:

Lovely, eh?  I couldn't even fit the front half of the mess in the lens!

Last week I was talking to Ryan's cousin about blogs, and he said some of the things us women write about are so stupid and who would want to read them??  I told him it's a family history, a journal.  This is one of those posts, just for me, to document a bad morning!  They come, they go! 

On a positive note, this morning at 3 a.m. when Ryan couldn't sleep, we had a beautiful "pillow talk" as I call it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I love those quiet moments when I can just talk to my sweetheart about life when nothing else in the world is there to interrupt.  I wouldn't trade it for sleep.

Lessons of today

~Enjoy the thunder~

My brother Mel told me that since he got into photography it has been amazing how his perspective has changed.  Instead of wanting every day to be sunny, he loves storms and rain and snow because they lend to much more interesting and dramatic photography.  This morning after hearing the awesome thunder and rain pouring all night, instead of being ticked off that it wasn't going to be the lovely, sunny spring day I was hoping for, I walked outside and took a picture.  I'll never be a photographer like him, but just blogging has helped to change my perspective. 

~Dress up~

Why do kids like dressing up so much??  Maybe it's because they can become for a moment something/someone that they had always dreamed about being. 

For me, I believe it's healthy to step out of my comfort zone once in a while and try to be someone I never believed I could be but hope to be someday.  Don't stop believing!  Even in pink unicorns :).

Ok, the other lesson is that if you're a little boy with two big sisters, pink is going to chase you wherever you go!

~Never get too old for Monday night milkshakes~

Healthy is important, but dang it, you've just got to eat something because it tastes good once in a while!

~Grab EVERY opportunity you get to laugh!!~ 

And be grateful for friends who present the opportunity in the first place!!  (Thanks Baldwin Family!  :)  We love you guys!)

Thanks Mel

Last Sunday after I came home from choir practice feeling a little better, I had the feeling I needed to call my brother, Mel.  I had texted and e-mailed them that week, but I hadn't wanted to bother them and wasn't sure if they were getting bombarded wtih hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, and texts, etc.  Anyway, I was so glad I called.  The crazy thing is that I was the one crying, and Mel was the one who strengthened me.  He reminded me about how this experience had strengthened his testimony of the priesthood when his fear and shaking subsided at the funeral home before he saw Wayne for the first time as soon as Dad laid his hands on his head to give him a priesthood blessing. 

Then he told me about a Brigham Young quote that he had heard in the past that he had not believed.  Here it is:

"God never bestows upon his people, or upon an individual, superior blessings without a severe trial to prove them."


“You that have not passed through the trials, and persecutions, and drivings, with this people, from the beginning, but have only read of them, or heard some of them related, may think how awful they were to endure, and wonder that the Saints survived them at all. The thought of it makes your hearts sink within you, your brains reel, and your bodies tremble, and you are ready to exclaim, ‘I could not have endured it.’

“I have been in the heat of it, and I never felt better in all my life; I never felt the peace and power of the Almighty more copiously poured upon me than in the keenest part of our trials. They appeared (as) nothing to me.” - Brigham Young
 
Mel told me that truly his family had received an increased outpouring of the Spirit in their lives in many ways including through different dreams and spiritual experiences of friends and family.  It all served to strengthen my testimony of prayer and was truly an answer to prayer for me, because it still to me seems incomprehensible and so hard to deal with and some days I feel like there is nothing I can do to help.  Again, I just want to thank Mel for helping me when originally I was calling him to try to lend some support to him!  I love that big brother of mine.  I also talked to Raeghn yesterday, and I am so glad she is my sister.  They are both such great examples to me.

My Montage 4/19/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Ry's birthday party

He's getting up there in age and I wasn't in the mood to buy 10 boxes of candles, :) so we just did one candle that he wanted to put out with his bottled water??  Derek took care of it in the video above.

Cousins!

Awww

Kissing cousins

Tori and Brit staying up late watching the Jazz basketball game with Thumper.

Scout camp

Here are some pictures of Ryan and Devon and Dallin at scout camp.  They went to the Kanab Narrows.  They came home tired and full of red sand but had a lot of fun.

Ryan and the men enjoying the campfire.

Devon racing up the sand dune to get Pringles.  He beat his scout leader, which led to....

and then

They also did long jumps off the dune