General Conference

October 2016

We (Emily, Amy, Mom, and myself) went to the Women's Session.  It was wonderful.  I do love sitting in our home and watching conference, but there is a special something about joining with thousands of other girls and women to sing and listen and learn.

This was the first time we got to go through the tunnel.  It wasn't very long (we thought this was "THE" tunnel... turns out there are lots of them) but it was windy.  We all felt like we were in a Star Wars movie.  I think Mom was entertained that we were so entertained.

There we are!  Sister Oscarson gave a remarkable talk about needing to be and raise a "sin-resistant" generation because conditions are not going to improve.  She quoted Pres. Nelson as saying that attacks against the church and the way we live are only going to increase.  It was kind of scary to think of the world we're sending our children into.  But then I looked at Amy and Emily and felt reassured.  They are strong and capable.  We need to teach the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ with sensitivity and common sense, otherwise the world will teach our youth Satan's lies.  That is not acceptable.  Another quote by Sister Oscarson was that young women need to see themselves as essential to this work.  I think that goes for all of us women.  We are needed and we need to be ready.  It was a sobering, empowering reminder of the reality we face. 

Dominican Republic (part 2)

Here we are in the Dominican Republic!  I think the DR looks good on us!!

Reid was long since in bed when we arrived but he welcomed us with this darling sign.  Reid has a talent for making signs and making others feel welcome.  We were given a quick tour (it is such a nice apartment and it was super fun to see it after having Emily take us on a virtual tour when she was here last summer).  We all crashed pretty quick but planned on going to sacrament meeting a few hours later.

It felt like we blinked and it was time to get up and get ready for church.  I love going to church with family and friends.  It's fun to be introduced to people in the ward because they always have nice things to say about whoever we're visiting.  Reid seemed especially excited for us to be there (and a bit disappointed when we left after sacrament meeting) and introduced us to several ward members and couple missionaries.  We headed home and had some early naps, well, we tried to have early naps.  Kate and Daniel were either wired from exhaustion or excited to be in a new place because they would not settle down.  On the other had, everyone taller than 3 feet was more than willing to settle down and take a nap.  We did our best. 

One unexpected change to this trip was that Mom left for Georgia before we got there.  Because she was gone Pres. Nelson felt that it was important for Dad to leave earlier than planned to join her.  When Dad explained that we were coming into town he was encouraged to take extra time off to spend it with us (which made for a delightful time for us) but then to plan on leaving shortly after we came home.  One of the other consequences of leaving before planned was there was a lot of food that Dad wanted to try and go through.  Matt was so up to the challenge of cooking meals low in sodium and using what was on hand.  Besides that, he had said he was hoping to make this an actual vacation for me.  Having him cook basically every dinner was about as good as it could get.  He's pretty awesome, pretty amazingly awesome!

We planned to go to the beach on Monday.  Amy was super excited.  Ok, ok, we were ALL excited.  We decided to go to a beach called  Bayahibe that was aboug 2 1/2 hours away.  We were hoping to also stop at a place called the Cave of Wonder, but it was closed.  So we continued on to the beach.  It was not disappointing.  It took us a while to get everyone changed and sunblocked, but then we were in the water.  Oliver mostly hung out with Grandpa initially.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of him when we first put him in the sand.  He would literally lay down in it on his belly and move his arms like he was swimming.  He just loved it.  Later when we had the little pink boat inflated he had a great time in the water, just splashing and growling (a.k.a. laughing) at everything.

Look at that water and sky.  Beautiful!  (pretty cute Little Guy as well!)

Amy taking the Littles out for some wave-jumping.

Sure love these people.  Love them!

I wonder if our sandbox at home is going to loose some of it's luster after playing here.  Matt helped Kate and Daniel dig a hole.  What is it about holes?  You just can't not dig one.  They put their feet in it and as the water would lap onto the beach and fill it with water, their feet got covered/stuck in sand.   They had so much fun.

     

Kate, Daniel, and Mama lovin' the aqua agua.

Are we cute, or what?!

 

 Matt was excited to try out his new scuba mask.  He went out twice and was surprised at how much he saw.  The water wasn't very deep so he was able to go out pretty far.  The water was cloudy because there are so many people and because of the shallowness, but he saw tons of fish.  I went out as well.  It was fun to be out in "real" water (as opposed to the swimming pool or the Crater) even if it was just snorkeling.

   

I'm not sucking in.  Nope, not at all.  I naturally sit like this ;)

Sisters.  Amy seemed to have a fun time.  She was super helpful with the Littles, went out with Matt to snorkel for a bit, did a little shopping, took lots of pictures and videos.

This is the closest we got to a group shot.  We weren't quite ready, but oh well. we were there and we loved it.

Not surprisingly, all three of the Littles conked out on the way home.  They had played and played and played and were out cold within a few minutes of leaving the beach.  

Oliver Mac, almost 11 months old.

Kathryn Elaine, almost 4 years old.

Daniel O., 2 1/2 years old.

Off we go (Dominican Republic part 1)

On my mission we used to say the days felt like weeks and the weeks felt like days.  Time has felt like that the last few years.  Each day can be exhausting, but then months fly by.  This trip really seemed to sneak up on me.  I guess it is really the entire month of  June that was sneaky!  And I suspect July (with the 4th, the Cornish Family Reunion, Oliver and Kate's birthdays all coming up) will fly by as well. Anyway, let's move on, because time is a tickin'.

The week before we left was super busy.  I was trying to get things done for the trip, get all the stuff for Mom and Dad's video to the videographer, getting some last minute planting in, and keeping the Littles from going crazy.  Pretty much everything worked out.  Pretty much.  Anyway, on Friday Amy showed up ready to go (bless her heart!) and we were packing between visits from Robyn and Brett's families.  I got most things packed and was down to the nubbins (which is my least favorite part).  At one point Amy and I were sitting in our shower with a bunch of little activities for Kate and Daniel to do on the plane, organizing them into little bags to be taken out throughout the flights/layover (Caroline gave me the idea).  I was also creating bags of activities we would do on the way home.  My goal was to be in bed by 10:30pm.  By 11pm I thought I was pretty close.  By midnight the lights were out and all was quiet.  

Matt and I woke up at 4:20am and got ready, woke Amy up, packed the last few things in the bags, put everything in the car, turned off all the lights except the bathroom light by the kitchen.  The three of us (Matt, Amy, me) slipped into the Little's room and each took one in our arms and made our way to the garage.  As we put them in their car seats, Daniel says in full voice, "Are we going on the plane?!"  Kate and Daniel didn't sleep the whole way to the airport (Oliver did).  We had a prayer and pulled out of the garage at 5:03am.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!  We picked up Brett on the way (he was out watering his trees when we pulled up :)).  We changed the Littles into their clothes when we arrived at the airport.  Kate and Daniel had been asking for several days about flying in a plane so they were especially wide-eyed at the sight of all the people and eventually the planes (and trucks and forklifts and moving walkways and extended golf carts and luggage trailers and every other cool machine that can be found at the airport).

Off we go!

When we were checking in the Delta employee said that all the passports had to be signed, even the Littles' passports.  She said we could sign for them and then write "parent," which is what we did for Daniel and Oliver.  But we had Kate sign her own :) I was proud of her for doing it all on her own.  Our flight didn't leave until 8:30am, but we were on four different rows and were really hoping to get new seat assignments.  That worked out well (thank goodness), so after we got through security it was wait time.  We found a corner next to the gate, got some breakfast, and let the Littles run/crawl around a bit before we had to get onto the flight.  

(Kate and Daniel waiting while we got the luggage checked and Oliver waiting to get changed in our little corner spot.)

 

The flights actually went really well.  We went from Salt Lake to New York first.  Matt sat with Kate and Daniel and across the aisle were Amy, me and Oliver on my lap.  Oliver made friends with the women behind us and the folks around were entertained by D and K's comments such as, "THIS PLANE IS MOVING!!" and "It goes up in the sky??"  Brett loaned us one of his Kindle Fires and Matt had downloaded several shows on it for K and D to watch.  I'd looked up ways to keep toddlers/kids entertained on planes and one of the things I saw was putting a phone or iPad or Kindle in a ziplock back and hanging it from the tray table clip.  It work great!  The one problem we had was when descending the change in cabin pressure really bothered Daniel and Kate.  They both cried, Daniel was especially uncomfortable.  The people around us were so kind.  Two offered us gum (we accepted some) and the flight attendant heated up some wet napkins and put them in the bottom of two cups to put over their ears (she said her mom always did that to her and she did it for her kids).  It didn't seem to help at all, but the gesture was very kind.  Once we were down they K and D settled down and seemed ok.  One flight down, one 4 hour layover and another 4 hour flight to go...

Auntie Robyn stopped by to drop off a care package for a friend of theirs who will be at the MTC in the Dominican Republic.  She also brought by little backpacks for the Littles with a little dress up outfit in each one.  We pulled them out during our NY layober.  A fairy and a superhero - cute kiddos.  I also got some little cookie sheets at the Dollar Store for some magnet activities like these geometric shapes.  They were also fun to play with 

     

On our way to the last leg of the trip!  Daniel had a wheely backpack for his carry-on.  He was a champ at taking care of it the whole time.  There were several employees that complimented him on taking his own luggage.

Oliver had napped for about 30 minutes on the first flight, but other than that no one had napped at all.  We were arriving in the DR at about midnight (10pm Utah time).  I wasn't sure how the sleeping would go on the trip but hoped they would sleep rather than exhaustion-induced-screaming on the last flight.  I didn't need to worry.  Before we even started down the runway we lost Kate...

And Daniel...

We admired these beautiful sunbeams as we waited for take-off.

Oliver snuggled into his Daddy's arms and was out a few minutes after take-off.

They didn't sleep the whole flight, but they still did well, all things considered.  On the flight Oliver made friends with an older gentleman across the aisle.  Matt later told me that the man most likely had had a stroke sometime.  Oliver would reach out to him and smile and laugh.  The man was delighted.  Babies can do magical things.  Once we arrived in the DR we were almost last off the plane and therefore last in the tourist tax line.  As we stood waiting Daniel pinched his arm in the pullup handle of the carry-on.  He really cried (pain and exhaustion collided).  I tried to comfort him but he still wailed.  After a few minutes an employee motioned for us to go to the front of the line.  I felt awkward, but everyone around us said, "Go! Don't question the man, just go."  They all seemed to know that it was because Daniel was crying and were ok with us moving up.

Getting our passports stamped was next and took a while.  It was still fun to stand there with Amy as she got hers stamped :)  Hopefully it won't be the last stamp in her passport.  We were met by our cheerful Dad/Grandpa Cornish.  Dominican Republic, here we come!!

Easter and Passover Seder

Here is this year's Easter Egg Hunt Bunch.  We gathered at Caroline's house on the Saturday before Easter (March 26).  She has such a great back yard and house with fun things for the kids.  She also has a real talent for making activities meaningful and fun.

The eggs were hid in the backyard and the kids were chomping at the bit to get out there and get some CANDY!  I love watching the cousins interact with each other.  Josiah volunteered to help Daniel and Alexa ran off hand in hand with Kate.  

     

Kate and Daniel were both very focused on getting eggs.  Daniel wouldn't take his eyes off of one egg he saw while I was taking his picture :)

     

Oliver Mac was delighted to play with the plastic eggs.

     

As I was saying before, Caroline has a knack for making things fun.  This was an activity she'd found where you hallow out real eggs, fill them with confetti and then play Duck, Duck, Goose.  On "Goose" you smash the egg on the unsuspecting soul before you take off running.  The kids loved it!

Daniel was sitting next to Matt, who I thought was monitoring his candy intake.  He was, technically, monitoring what he was eating, he just wasn't limiting what he was eating.  His strategy was to get it all over with now... eat it all now and be done.  

I've wanted to go to the Passover Seder that BYU puts on for a long, long time.  It's been part of my greater desire to understand, appreciate, and celebrate the Easter holiday.  By celebrate I don't mean having cuter decorations or better treats in the baskets (though I'm not opposed to decorations or treats), but that I want to celebrate the atonement (suffering for our sins, dying on the cross, and being resurrected) of Jesus Christ as the greatest act of love ever shown.  I feel like I've missed the meaning and purpose of this holiday and I am on a mission to change that.  I'm excited.  T

BYU has been holding a Passover Seder for 40 years. We were finally able to make it happen this year (April 8).  

Here we are at the Seder, waiting for it to begin. :)

Matt was really interested in coming to the Seder, too, and we talked more about what we knew about Passover before we went.  To be honest, I felt like I knew way to little about Passover.  I'd been to a partial Passover a few years ago with our friends, the Stevens, who's mother was a Jew.  I found the whole experience very interesting.  This year (as it is every year, I think) it was lead by Jeffrey R. Chadwick, a Passover specialist.   Here are a few things that I learned that have stuck with me:

1.  The Passover is a celebration of the origin of the Israelite people.  I am a part of the House of Israel, so I can consider the Passover as part of our family history.  We are as much descended from the Israelites as any Jewish friends are.  

2. There needed to be a way to help the Israelites to remember what the Lord had done for them.  Everything in the meal, even the order of the foods eaten, was symbolic of something.  The word Seder means "order," so the Passover Seder means "The Order of Passover."  It is really quite remarkable that this tradition has lasted for thousands of years.  There is power in symbolism, it's just unfortunate when what they symbols represent are not recognized or accepted.  

3.  Some aspects of the meal had to change, such as no longer eating lamb.  Because the lamb had to be slain in the temple and the temple had been destroyed.  So, no more lamb.  But there was a lamb bone to represent the lamb that used to be eaten.

The Matza (unleavened bread) that they ate because there was not time for the bread dough to rise when they were thrust out of Egypt.

The whole Passover Seder is a very long event, going on for hours.  There is a booklett, the Passover Haggadah, that is used so as not to forget or skip any part.  Bro. Chadwick said something that really struck me.  He said that Israel became lost not because they didn't know where they were, but because they forgot.   He ended the evening by explaining that the Savior was at the Last Supper - a Passover Seder - and used the ritual foods to institute the sacrament.  He began with what they knew and taught them new truths.  I've been thinking about the sacrament and the temple and the ability of symbols to teach me new truths if I will let it, if I will "always remember" the Savior.  I look forward to going again and learning more.  It was a lovely evening with Matthew Jared that has provided much food for thought since.

San Francisco and Palo Alto

February 25

Hooray for work trips - that we also counted as a birthday trip - that we get to do together!  Matt has to get CME credit (Continuing Medical Education) every year.  We've used it as an excuse a few times to go together on a trip that gets partially paid for.  This year he settled on a conference in California - Palo Alto - focused on humanitarian aid medicine.  We thought we'd extend the trip a little  and make it a real vacation, just the two of us.  

I was actually more nervous that than I thought I would be to leave our little people.  But when our neighbor and good friend, Beckie Gilmore, said she would be able to help my parents with the kids I was much more at ease to be going.  Matt gave each of the Littles a blessing the morning we left.  He does so much to try and be a good father.  Much of it goes unknown or unnoticed.  I'm grateful not only for his service but for his example.  

After the blessings we hit the ground running.  San Fransisco/Palo Alto, here we come!!!

We were pretty excited.  Here's our first selfie as we got to the airport.

It turns out the the traveling part of vacations is quickly becoming one of our favorite parts of the trip.  We chat about things and get into longer conversations that are hard to have without being interrupted by work, people, sleep, meals, and other responsibilities.  Once we landed we took BART (mass transit) and started heading towards our hotel, which was in downtown SF.  On our way we wanted to grab something to eat and this little place caught our eye.  It was Nepalese food, which we had never had before but we were excited to try.  It was pretty good (although we didn't get to eat it until we got to our hotel room, so it had lost some of its freshness.  Still, great start.

Here's our hotel, Park Central.  Matt had picked it because we'd be able to walk to a lot of places from it.  We were going to be here for 2 days before we went to Palo Alto for the conference.  We stopped at the concierge's desk in the lobby for a map, had a good chat about things to do and see, dropped off our luggage, and headed out the door. First stop: China Town (because it was close and because it sounded like a cool place to start).  

 

Turns out that the Chinatown in SF is the largest one in North America and has the largest community of Chinese outside of Asia (thank you Wikipedia).  It was fun to walk around and smell around.  It was remarkable how much it reminded me of walking around in Panyu or Guangzhou.  I guess that shouldn't have been surprising, but it was quite fun to have China on the brain.

It wasn't long before we started facing the famous hills of San Fransisco.  Wowzers!  They were crazy steep.  It's hard to capture the steepness of the hills, but we muscled up several of them.  At one point we realized we were on Lombard street, though not the wiggly part, but a more normal looking section.  As we walked further down we could see "the most crooked street in the world" a few blocks away.

   

   

We saw signs for a "Coit Tower" and followed them to a pretty view and a closed museum.  We didn't care.  It was such a pleasant evening to be out walking and talking.  We did get our first glimpse of the Golden Gate bridge.  It was dusk so we decided to start wandering back toward the hotel and find a place to eat. 

Of course we wanted to try a ride on a cable car, so we jumped on one which took us several blocks to the end of the line where it is turned around.  We enjoyed talking to the trolley drivers.  I couldn't believe that they still run by holding onto a huge cable that runs just below the ground.  It is apparently the last manually operated cable car system in the world.  We found a nice Indian restaurant for dinner and tried a few new dishes.  It was yummy (but then again, we're big fans of Indian).  While at the restaurant we got to talk to the Littles.  They were having a wonderful time!  Still made me a little homesick for snuggling with them as we put them to bed.  

When we were checking into our hotel, one of the amenities listed was free bicycle rental.  We asked as soon as we could if they were available, but they were already out.  So the next morning (Feb 26) we had a light breakfast of fruit and juice we'd bought on the way home the night before and asked about the bikes.  They were available so we got our helmets on and we were off!  I'll be honest, I was nervous, and told Matt so, because, well, SF has CRAZY hills.  It turns out, however, that the location of the hotel was only a few blocks and slightly up from the wharf.  So we cruised down to  water's edge and then along the piers.  It was a great ride, mostly level or a slight incline/decline.   

He looks good on a bright orange beach cruiser, don't you think ;)!

We got down to Pier 39 and it was kind of chilly, so we got a hot chocolate and sat on the pier to drink it and watch the fog clear.  As we left we heard the barking of sea lions and found a whole crowd of them around the corner from where we were sitting. We watched them for a while and read about how they started coming after an earthquake in 1989.  There are several hundred that come every year.  At one point there were more than 1,700 sea lions!  Super fun.  Kate and Daniel would have liked watching them.

We biked through the Maritime National Historic Park to look at some old ships.

Then we decided to try and bike to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It looked far away, and again, I was more nervous than Matt, but didn't want to miss out.  There are a lot of things that I do because of Matt.  I love that about him.  The ride ended up being quite pleasant.  There was one hill that I had to walk the last half, but other than that we did great.  There were a lot of bike paths and we weren't in a lot of traffic.  I was surprised that it was still foggy by mid morning, but that is normal.  It was really pretty, even romantic to be riding along in the mist along this famous bridge.  

   

We stopped for lunch at a sea food place because we figured we should take advantage of getting something fresh.  It ended up being disappointing - looked like they took the leftovers of everything in the kitchen and through it in a soup.  Oh well.  We stopped a few other times to look at things that caught our eye before getting the bikes back to the hotel in the afternoon.  We had already checked out and grabbed our bags and walked to a park.  We sat on a bench and read some more of "Pencils of Promise" which we were almost finished with, and chatted and snacked.  It was kinda perfect.  When do we do that at home?  That will be a date night when the weather warms up - a park, a book, a snack, and each other.

We walked to the train station and headed to Palo Alto, to Stanford University, where Matt's conference started the next day.  I had an interesting experience standing in a large group of people waiting to board the train.  I started looking closely at those standing around.  They were all talking, or reading or staring or smiling or whatever and I wondered where each one was going, what each one was like.  And then the thought came to mind that they are each perfectly known and loved by Heavenly Father.  Perfectly known and loved!  I felt a sense of awareness of how important each one of these people were.  And then the gate opened and everyone started moving.  It is amazing to me, and yet makes so much sense, that Heavenly Father knows each one of us.  Knows where we are and where we are going and has a plan for our happiness.   

The train stopped right next to the hotel which was also just a block from the campus.  (This is Matt on the train enjoying his treat of orange gummy slices and a ginger/orange/dark chocolate bar.)

The rest of the weekend was spent with Matt at the conference and me reading, walking around a mall, watching movies, and strolling down the streets of Palo Alto and eating yummy food.  We took a bus to ********** to go to church.  It's always interesting to walk into a ward that you have no connection to and see how it looks.  Several people said hello.  One of the speakers spoke in a way that Matt totally related to, which he mentioned afterwards.  Monday morning we literally ran to the train station and almost missed our plane, but we made it!  By the end of our trip we'd eaten Indian, seafood, Greek, American, Japanese, and Burmese.  It was deeee-lish!  We got home and all was well there.  Mom and Beckie and chatted become buddies while watching the kids.  That was such a great comfort to know they were well cared for.  It was a great trip.  Let's do another!