The Weather

You know, we heard that we were going to love the fall and winter here in Oklahoma.  I have been loving this fall.  There are still so many trees with the beautiful colors of autumn on them.
These trees really love the leaves, they just won't let go of them.

Last week we had gorgeous weather.  There were days that were nearly 70 degrees.  I have enjoyed walking just over the mile to Leah's school in the afternoon to pick her up and the weather could not have been more picture perfect.  Walking home with the cutest kids in the world is also a wonderful thing.  I love when they share what is on their minds and also find wonderful discoveries in nature.  There have been many times when we have brought home a stick, acorn, or leaf collection.

The following picture is the street that we walk home on.  This was from a few weeks ago.  The first time I drove down this street with all of the trees I fell in love.

Well, guess what?  The weather changed.   Last Thursday morning I woke up and turned on the news to see what we were going to be expecting as far as the weather goes.  I was very surprised!  

I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a 100% chance of precipitation.  

Not only was I surprised by the 100% chance of precipitation, but I was also surprised by the sudden drop from 68 high on Thursday to 32 high on Friday, and I have never seen or been through an ICE storm before.  Then, on Sunday it showed a 70% chance of snow.  It rarely snows in Oklahoma, so it is a dramatic event when it happens.  Everyone makes a pretty big deal about it and hardly anyone is on the roads.  It's kind of nice....  

Now knowing that the weather was definitely changing from the wonderland that I had been enjoying I decided to go and talk to the Support Specialist (secretary) in at the Institute to ask about what I need to expect. She was super helpful.  After she showed me some pictures of what to expect I learned that I was thankful we had a fire place just in case the power went out. (which it did not.)

This weekend was fantastic.  We stayed home and rested up.  Caleb was to have a basketball game, but it was cancelled due to the icy roads.  We watched some fun movies, played some games, and read some books snuggled under some blankets and with the fireplace in use.  It was so good in fact, I didn't want to send the kids to school today.  I just love having my family near.

This morning though we got up and got ready and sent the children where they were supposed to go.  As I was driving home from dropping them off I noticed that still the leaves were stuck to the trees.  Even though they had each been coated by ice through the weekend they are still as beautiful as ever.  It was like the ice had preservation effect. 

The red leaves on the tree near our driveway.

The tree near our driveway

Isn't it beautiful?  I am so used to Idaho where by the time it snows everything is all brown, and there isn't much color left.  It was simply beautiful to see all the icy crunchy piles of leaves and the dust of white snow all around.  It creates some sort of magic in me.  I just want to stay near my loved ones and pretend we all live in a snow globe.  

 I love learning about this new home.  

The tree in front of our kitchen window. 11/25/2013

Did you notice the snow?  

The Happenings

Recently our oldest child, Caleb, finished his football season as a seventh grader.  He was pretty successful too because he played every minute in every game during the season.  I love that kid and the hard work ethic that he has.  He is an amazing example to me in so many ways.

Caleb now had the opportunity to make the 7th grade basketball team.  So far he has just been participating in practices, but his first game is tomorrow night, we will see how that goes.  He loves sports and loves to be busy.  Every minute spare time he has he asks to go play basketball so that he can improve as much as possible.  

Brody is currently playing the tuba in the 6th grade band.  I love listening to him play.  He is really pretty good at it and has a natural knack for it.  His band teacher Mr. C complimented him in front of the entire band the other day announcing to one and all "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a tuba player!"  Brody beamed with confidence about this.  He is thrilled to be finding his way in this new town.  He has a friend who is also in the band that he met this summer, but if you know Brody at all he has many more friends now.  That kid is one of the friendliest I have ever known.  I love his genuine heart.  

Leah exudes confidence in her academics.  She recently found out from her report card that she is excelling in each subject.  She loves her teacher.  We have decided that her teacher reminds us of Miss Honey from the book Matilda.  Leah not only believes that she is smart, but she now knows she is smart.  I have heard her claim that a few times in the last week and it sure makes my heart swell.  Leah is a girl after my own heart, she loves all things that involve the arts.  She is constantly drawing and creating.  She has expressed her desire to begin a dance class so that one day she can be a great dancer. We have enjoyed many things together as mother and daughter.  I could not be more blessed.

Drake.  Oh Drake.  That kid has me wrapped around his little finger.  Drake loves to snuggle and he enjoys playing trains, cars, and legos.  He is the life of the party whenever we go to the Institute to visit Doug at work.  Elder and Sister Homan the missionary couple who serve in the Institute also love Drake to bits.  Drake is learning to play the harmonica so that he and Elder Homan can play as a duet one day.  Drake is clever, and he knows that he is loved beyond his capacity to understand.  Drake is one smart boy and he will never cease to amaze me with words that come out of his mouth.  

Doug is learning more and more about his new job each week.  I am sure that he is overwhelmed often, and I try to ease his burdens as best as I can.  This is a huge learning curve and he has quite a bit more responsibility than he had in Idaho.   

I help at the Institute once a week by making lunch for "Friday Forum".  This is when students come to listen to a speaker and then eat a yummy lunch afterwards.  I work with another woman to do this and I am so thankful to have a purpose.  It also allows me the opportunity to meet the people Doug works with on a regular basis.  I love being able to put a face to a name. 

Doug's younger sister, Megan, recently moved here to Oklahoma and is currently residing with us.  It has been so great to have her here.  Leah mentioned how excited she was to get a sister.  Megan amazes me with how well she is getting along.  She found herself a job already and has found opportunities to work a little on the side helping an elderly couple.  She is also already in the social scene of the singles ward, she goes to all the functions she can and participates in Institute.  She is also a great support to Doug. 

Not Easy

Would you say you have an easy life?

No?

What?  You must, you look like you have it all together!


Something that I have realized lately is that not one person on this earth has it easy.  Life is NOT easy.  It wasn't meant to be.

I recently was reading the life story of my step-mom's grandmother.  I found her life so interesting.  She was born in Germany and joined the church there. She was growing up during much of the Hitler years.  Later one of the missionaries came back and married her and he then brought her back to the states.  Their life was tough!  They had a farm and also eight children.  She was married to her sweetheart for just over 20 years when he had an accident and died, leaving her alone to raise the rest of the children left at home.  She worked on the farm with her children to keep the family united and fed.
She lived as a widow for 48 more years before she was able to join her sweetheart.  Of course there are many, many, more details to this sweet woman's life, but what I realized is her life was not easy.  Though when I met this Grandma, she was so gentle and kind, I would never have imagined that she had gone through such trials.


As we prepared to move here to Oklahoma, we knew were supposed to come here.  We had that personal revelation revealed to us through the Holy Ghost.   It was amazing.  I lean on that feeling a lot.  Why?  I have to lean on that feeling a lot to remind myself that this is what the Lord wanted us to do.
Life is hard.  We have had hard times.  Not everything goes our way.  I certainly have imagined much of our experience here to go much differently.

Life certainly isn't easy, but if it were easy would it be memorable or as wonderful?  Would I be able to realize the beauty of a great day if I had not had the crummy days before?  I figure that I am still being blessed, that I am being built to be the exact person Heavenly Father wants me to be.  Through each experience I learn and I grow.  If I become bitter, I believe that my growing will lessen.  I want to be what Heavenly Father has envisioned me to become.  I don't know what the future will hold, and frankly I truly don't want to know.  I can only handle one day at a time, trying my best.  My best is not anyone else's best, but it is MY best.  If I keep putting in my best, eventually I will become better than I am today.

Knowing that others have had trials comforts me. I love knowing that we are all in this together; that generations before us have had to problem solve their lives day by day and generations after us will have to do the same.  It is in this that it really doesn't matter our age or our differences, because we all have one similar truth....Life is not Easy.

Friends

Over the last 48 hours I have thought about the topic of best friends quite a few times.

Saturday I woke and worked through some things, then I decided to try to call one of my dearest friends.  When her husband (who is super wonderful and sweet) answered the phone I was a bit disappointed, then when he told me that she was away and that he had to take a message I began to tear up.  For some reason at that point in time I just wanted to talk to her.  No one else would do.

It was the greatest last night when she returned my call.  She made my day.  She can tell me things that makes me laugh so hard, then she can understand me so well that she can bring tears to my eyes. She is a great listener and I can trust her with anything.

In a true friendship it really doesn't matter how long it has been since you have seen or talked to your friend, because the relationship is always there ready for you to pick up where you left off.

There are just some people that you connect with in life.  They understand you like no one else.

Last night Megan (Doug's sister) arrived.  She has made the giant decision to move here to Norman, Oklahoma.  We were very excited!  She was blessed to travel here with her best friend.  As she watched me while I described talking to my friend she teared up at the fact that she is going to be separating from her friend.  I enjoyed watching the way those two interacted.  They know so much about each other.  I also empathize with her.  It is tough to leave dear friends.


Today I realize how blessed I truly am.  I have had the experience of dear friends.  Those in whom I can trust with parts of my heart.  My dear friends do not ever have in their intentions to use what I have confided in them to injure me.  They are patient and kind and understanding.

I may not have millions of friends, but I can tell you that I truly value the friendship of my good, dear friends.

Thank you so much for being there when I need you.



 

Sunday Night Walk

Tonight we went on a wonderful Sunday walk.  We walked around OU campus.  Wow, what  a beautiful place.  The flowers and the sculptures and the buildings and the fountains.  I could spend so much time just sitting and drinking up all of the beauty.  

The picture above is all four of our children enjoying one such beautiful fountain that was donated to the university by the class of 1935.  I vow that we will have many more such walks in the future.

Change

Last night I had a dream.  You know those dreams that you have that bother you even while you are dreaming it? Well, it was that kind of dream.  I dreamt that Doug was asked to move to Seattle to teach there and we were going to have to leave Oklahoma. In the dream we were packing and driving away from our current position.  I remember that I cried and cried.  In fact in the dream I remember realizing that I was crying much more than I had when I had to leave Idaho.  Despite how sad I was I remember that our extended family was super excited to have us so much closer.            I woke up.


It was then that I realized how much I love being here in Oklahoma.


Last week our ward here in Oklahoma incurred some boundary changes.  CHANGE.  Many people in our ward were a bit melancholy today as we went to church, because they were missing some of their dear friends.    It didn't hurt our family too much, because we are still learning who is who in our ward.  In fact, there are less people now, so now I hold out some hope of getting to know everyone a little bit better and a little bit faster.

Perhaps this is what brought on the strange dream I had.

As we were in church today there were three speakers, all the members of our bishopric, our leaders.
One is a new friend who actually used to be the bishop of another ward (and by 'used to be', I mean up until last week. His family was affected by the re-allignment of the ward boundaries, and our Bishop called him in place of his counselor that was affected by the boundary change as well).  All the speakers today spoke about the same topic:  CHANGE.  Our new friend shared a conference talk that had a beautiful analogy about a root bound plant.  It is so great that I have decided to share it with you:

When a choice plant became root bound and began to deteriorate, a young friend of ours decided to transplant it to a larger container. Carefully he lifted the greenery from its small pot and put it into its larger home, trying to disturb the roots and soil as little as possible. The novice gardener watched and waited. To his dismay, the plant still struggled. Our friend expressed his frustration to an experienced gardener who offered his services. When the plant was placed in the gardener’s hands, he turned the pot upside down, pulled out the plant, shook the soil from the roots, and clipped and pulled all the stragglers from the root system. Replacing the plant into the pot, he vigorously pushed the soil tightly around the plant. Soon the plant took on new life and grew.

How often in life do we set our own roots into the soil of life and become root bound? We may treat ourselves too gently and defy anyone to disturb the soil or trim back our root system. Under these conditions we too must struggle to make progress. Oh, change is hard! Change can be rough.

The Lord does not want His church to become root bound and stagnant. Constant revelation through the prophets is needed for the growth of His kingdom.

There is nothing so unchanging, so inevitable as change itself. The things we see, touch, and feel are always changing. Relationships between friends, husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister are all dynamic, changing relationships. There is a constant that allows us to use change for our own good, and that constant is the revealed eternal truths of our Heavenly Father.

Marvin J. Ashton, Progress Through Change

If you are interested in reading the rest of this great talk, you can go here.

I suppose that the reason that I feel so impressed by this talk was because lately we, the Sturges Family, have gone through quite a bit of change.  We moved from our home in Melba.  Melba truly was our home in every way.  We put all of our heart and soul into that small community.  It hurt when we had to leave.  Melba helped Doug and I become who we are today.  Melba is a major part of our children's childhood.  

It was challenging for a while.  I have missed much of our Idaho life.  But, now that we have been here for three months I find that I am growing.  I am changing a bit.  I am becoming exactly what my Heavenly Father wants me to be. He is blessing me in so many ways.  Our children are also feeling the comfort of Heavenly Father's blessings.  It hurt some to have my roots pulled apart, but hopefully in a year or so I will be a more beautiful plant that has learned to take on new life and GROW.  

How have you found that CHANGE has blessed you?

The last few weeks

The last few weeks have been full.  Mostly of adventures we would rather not have.  Doug has had some complications that have resulted from his knee surgery, and he has been through many doctor appointments.  Last Friday he was meeting in OKC with a physician and if we had not gone through this experience, we would not have met Howdy.  Howdy was Doug's nurse.  She is a woman of about 45 years of age and had some fun stories to tell.  I just thought that it was super fun to say,"See ya later Howdy."  What an oxymoron sentence.  How often does one get to say such things.  Well, what I didn't know was that as I left the parking garage I was going to meet a parking attendant named Yajuanna.   That's right.  As I read her name I asked her how she pronounced it.     How would you say this unusual name?   You wanna guess?

You Wanna.

  That is how you would pronounce it!  So on my way back home I called my friend Peggy and told her of both of the unusual name I had come upon in the last hour.  She is always good to cheer me up with a laugh.  I also called Megan (my sister-in-law) and she and I chuckled about these for a bit.  I always need a good laugh, so I decided that this was a blessing from Heavenly Father.





This we Doug and i were blessed to have my step-mom come into town to enjoy the role of Grandma.  When we were still in Idaho we learned that there would be a Husband and Wife Conference in Dallas that was in October.  We arranged with Sharon to come and she was super happy to help us with this need.  I gotta say that the kids were equally as pleased.  They were able to go on adventures with her and be spoiled by her.  I don't think the visit will ever be forgotten.  It was so good to have her come and it felt like home with her here.

As Doug and I went to Dallas we followed the directions to meet at the front of the Dallas Temple in our athletic gear. ( I loved meeting there.  I had forgotten that the Dallas temple and the Boise Idaho temple were built around the same time, so they both look very similar. Another blessing to me.)  As the group gathered we were told that we were going to run "The Amazing Race", and we were handed our first clue.  Doug and I were super excited about the theme of the conference because this is our all time favorite TV show.  We love the challenges and the travels.  The amazing race that we ran was as a couple and each clue was to teach us how to unite together.  During the first leg of the race we had to do numerous exercises, stack cups, find our name in a room of 1,000 cups, and list characteristics we love about each other.  The second leg began the next morning and we were thrust on a train into downtown Dallas.  We had to take pictures of ourselves next to four different "features" of Dallas.  The third leg of the race we had to share painting a picture and then finish the race with running a three legged race.    Honestly, I believe that this conference could not have been more custom made for Doug and I.  We had a blast.

Sometimes I think Heavenly Father must look down from heaven above and just laugh.  Am I crazy or have any of you had this thought as well?

I was so nervous about going to this conference.   I wonder if God giggled in excitement for what He had in store for us.  He knew that Doug and I needed the conference to be planned exactly the way it was planned.  He knew how much fun we would have with the challenges and also how we would be able to come closer together with them.  We also were able to get to know other couples better by going through some of the challenges with them.

I am so thankful that Heavenly Father knows what I need.  I am also so glad that He knows my future and is concerned for me.  Heavenly Father has built me up from my past experiences for a reason, and He has a path for me to go.  I am very happy that I don't know the future.  I know that if I knew the future that I would shirk from what I need to go do.  I also am so thankful for personal revelation.  I can communicate with my Heavenly Father and through personal revelation He can communicate with me. He can guide and direct me if my heart is pure.    I am so thankful for the examples of those that are around me.  I love that I can follow what is good from each of their lives.  I am so blessed.