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Showing posts from June, 2013

Gendering Mormonism Retreat at Timberlakes

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 Last fall my friend Allyson wrote to me and told me she was doing something and that I should join up too. I've known Allyson for a dozen years now and she has never recommended anything or anyone that isn't stand-up-and-shout fabulous. So I started participating in an online discussion group following the readings for the Gendering Mormonism class at Claremont College. It consisted of about two dozen women who all did readings and then commented in an email group. The catch was that most everyone knew each other from their graduate student days at Notre Dame. I knew three people.  Then, someone suggested a retreat (which was a reunion for everyone else) and I had to accept the fact that I'm kind of a retreat hussy. I'll go anywhere for any reason, and even with people I don't know. So I chipped in for that too. We stayed here at the Timberlakes, just outside Heber.  These two were the masterminds (can you say mistressminds?): Liz, who organized the grou

I have a garden, I lovely garden . . .

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 I also have a kindergartner who has been plucking cherries in all shades of pink, trying to hasten the harvest. Finally Papa said it was time and he was out there before breakfast, up on the ladder and shaking the tree.  Joss, holding forth on the finer points of cherry picking (or explaining why he didn't have to wash them first -- Pesticides Ahoy! as Homstarrunner says).  Various plants here. We've tried sweet peas for several years and this was the most successful to date, but they still turned out much shorter than the flowers of my childhood. Our onions are finally growing past the scallion stage and I have no idea what is different. We tried lettuce-leafed basil and you could make boats out of the leaves. And the zucchini is freakishly big this year. Waist-high before it produced a single fruit. The kids groaned when they saw it, because they know it's open zucchini season now. Rob's plum trees have now nearly covered the sandbox. It felt like it w

Trek Day Two

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 Here is all of our ill-gotten booty. We had heard from leaders with increasing panic that the flags were missing and that they needed to have them for an activity.  Rob and the kids mounted them all and brought them out at breakfast. Leaders were relieved.   Our trail the second day was all uphill until lunch; we were using a road that led to an old mine shaft. Silver mine, I think. It felt hotter, though I think it wasn't even 70 degrees. One of the things Rob got out of trek was how much worse life was for women simply because of the clothes. I felt ugly and hot, but not uncomfortable -- hiking boots and 15 yards of fabric is easier to wear than nylons and 4" heels in my book.  We did do a women's pull, but with a very light hand. They guys were all running along side us and no one had to take a vow of silence or carry women across rivers or bury baby dolls . . .   And in our family, the girls had been pulling all along. We stopped for lunch up by the

Trek at Night

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 Maddie and pals, once we got into camp: Lucy, Maddie, Hadley, McKay, and Toa. We had dinner, and I was completely converted to our leaders' way of doing things. We had fabulous food. We'd heard other groups getting beef jerky or bread and chicken broth to eat, but we had full-on feasts for breakfast and dinner, and they packed us picnics for lunch.  After dinner they taught us two dances and the everyone tried them out.  I love this one of Maddie. I think her orthodontist would too.  Rob and I even matched up some of our "kids" with neighbors we knew and tried to keep them all with partners.  Sam was chosen as bug-sprayer and he was just as effective as Caroline and the sunscreen.  Here's the part where we're supposed to have a reflective time around the campfire sharing our stories of the day and emoting. Instead, one of the kids said "Let's steal all the other families' flags" and that is what we did. Kinley stuck on

Trek in Fairview Canyon

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Back last fall, Rob and I were asked to go along on trek this June with the teenaged kids in our ward. This is a reenactment of the Mormon pioneers who came across the plains. While many of them came in covered wagons initially, it was more than some of them could afford. Brigham Young came up with  the idea to make "handcarts" which used people instead of a team of oxen to pull a family's belongings across most of America. One of my own pioneer ancestors, Mary Ann Argyle, was in the first company of handcarts that came out to Utah. Going on trek is something that has trended since Rob and I were in our teens. Only one person of our generation went, and her experience was kind of hardcore (the leaders brought live chickens and made the kids figure out how to slaughter them) (ugh). Now, however, most teenagers around here get a chance to go on trek once between 14 and 18. This was the first time that our stake (a group of congregations) had put on a trek. I was skepti

Cousins

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 Zaniyah and Joss at breakfast. Nelyana playing duck, duck, goose with Elsie, Joss, Ole, and Zaniyah.