#55

Getting to the temple was a lot of work. Worth it, but a lot. After I dropped Frankie I came to the hotel to charge my phone for a bit since using maps drains my battery.

Then I took a light rail, bus, and then walked a mile and a half. I could have ridden another bus and only walked .8 miles, but I would have had to wait for the bus and it was a lovely day. 

I crossed over I-5 a couple times. 

First sighting!

Portland is a super unique temple! Entering the  celestial room was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and then the celestial room had an upstairs! Another first was the mini arboretum near the welcome desk. 

It’s a beautiful temple!

I walked about half mile to deseret book and got some new garments, then grabbed dinner at Chick-fil-A, which is lame but it’s what sounded good. 🤷‍♀️

My phone battery was precariously low again (I only charged it to 80%) and I was nervous, so I’d map it, take pictures, and then turn the map off. So it had me walked like a mile and a half after the bookstore, which, fine.

But then After walking when i re-mapped to check my work, it had me going a different way and needing to walk another almost 2 miles. I was tired and sweaty when I finally got on the bus.

Moroni! 👇🏻 

A closer look. 

It took me over 2 hours to get back. So I got back and maybe 20 minutes later Frankie did. Mine was a long outing. 

Anyway, Frankie had fun and traded a bunch of pins, even her Maryland one. 🤷‍♀️

She met up with some kids down at the pool, went back to their room, and made it home within a one hour period. We both showered and she practiced her speech which will be early tomorrow. 

Educators Rising

We woke up on our own this morning at 7 (10 our time) and got ready for the day. Ms. Wynkoop said we needed to pick up Frankie’s  registration packet, so we headed to the convention center.

Quick and easy 10 minute walk. It’s a little more chilly than I thought it would be, but mostly just beautiful day. 

Everyone at the conference is so friendly! Though 2 different people tried to get us to pay $5 for a picture with them, so maybe that’s a Portland thing? 🤷‍♀️🤣

We got her registration packet, which we had to get in line based on her school’s name, which was trickier than one might think. We were like Dr. James A. Forrest Tech Center? D for doctor? J for james? Or Forrest, which is what it is mostly called? Turns out it was D for dr. 

We had bought her a goody bag bundle, so that was fun to look through. 

Ed Rising 26!

With her conference registration she got a $100 gift card for food, so she got herself an Apple danish and Italian soda. 

There were just small groups milling around, so we chatted with some people that were very helpful and we got some good information about the conference. One lady even said she’d come see Frankie’s competition with her teacher trainees. We found the room she’ll give her speech in, just to be all ready for tomorrow morning. 

They are hosting a college information room that doesn’t open till 1, but we walked through and talked to some people and a lady from our native land of Hawaii told us about the Farmers Market that is only held on Saturdays. We were getting pretty bored waiting around the convention center; so we boarded the light rail and headed to Portland University. 

It was cute!

I meant to get a picture of the market, but it was huge - tons of fruit stands - we bought the best rainier cherries, honey, lots of coffee and other random things we don’t partake of. We got a sampler polish platter and enjoyed some pierogies and a giant sausage. This picture is funny because the sausage is so prominent. 🤣

We also enjoyed a horchata and raspberry lemonade. We called all around and people watched and I’m happy to say Portland is still keeping it weird. 

Frankie finally got word that Maryland people had arrived at the convention center, so we headed back there. Ms. Wynkoop hooked her up with pins to trade and also gave her the coveted Mississippi pin with the fireflies that glow - it’s so cute! She found her a friend and directed him to introduce her to everyone. Frankie is so social and seeing everyone having fun in their big groups all yesterday on the plane and today, she was ready for some friend time. 

Now I’m making my slow way to the Portland temple. An hour on the bus and a 30 minute walk and I am happy as a clam!

To Portland we go

I dropped the girls off Friday morning and ran to the store to use a coupon. I picked up a water heater de-scaler from the Howell’s because both Matt and I had mostly cold water showers on Thursday and he thinks it’s the water heater. And then home to finish up getting ready to go. Adi headed to Carter’s grad party and Matt, Frankie, and I headed to BWI for our trip to Portland.

Unfortunately we had a 2 layover flight. Each flight was 2’ish hours - BWI - Memphis, Memphis - Denver, then Denver - Portland. It makes for a long day. We left at 11:30 and landed in Portland at 9:30, which is 12:30 our time. 

By the time we collected our bags, which they made us check because our flights were full, metro’d to our hotel, and walked there, it was midnight. That makes a lovely 16 hour travel day. 

We got to our hotel and were pretty wound up and awake, so we watched a movie and went to bed. And now we’re in Portland. 🤗

Just stuff

All week Frankie and I have been preparing for our trip. We bought snackies and did laundry and coordinated toiletries. 

We had the weirdest thing happen twice now. We’ve received a single can of chef boyardee addressed to “Modesty Cronin” at our exact address. Both from Amazon. I posted about it in our LG page and someone asked Claude who said it’s a scam to get good reviews on Amazon. I can’t explain it, but it’s not hurting us at all other than being super creepy. And chef boyardee is gross. 🤷‍♀️

Matt helped me with the annual freezer defrosting. It always looks so good and I wish it wouldn’t frost over, but it’s probably good to go through all that food and empty it out anyway. 

These cute boys went to see Toy Story 5 and I can’t wait to see it too! And don’t let Henry’s shoes fool you, boy still isn’t walking. 🤣

And finally cute video featuring our baby bug finishing up her week of intensive dance. It’s been a good and long week for her and she’s pooped!

Ok, actually finally one more pic from her recital. ❤️

Mulan

Tuesday was inklings at Kellyn’s house. I dropped the girls off at dance and ran some errands for Disney dinner Tuesday. 

We had a small inklings group and a nice discussion. Then Alecia and I walked since we hadn’t had a chance to catch up since the girls graduation craziness and they headed out of town. 

Adi offered to take Delaney to her afternoon appointment and finish off my grocery shopping for me and I was only too ready to let her. 

That night we had our last of the first Disney dinner cookbooks I bought. 

I love Mulan and it was a good one! 

I decided to go easier on myself and buy potstickers and I was glad I did. 

I thought everything was delicious but the girls didn’t enjoy the rice. And the dessert was cute but a little lame compared to some of the desserts we’ve had. Anyways, I’ve been singing mulan all week. 

And to keep it real - the aftermath in the kitchen. Disney dinners are fun, but there’s not a week that’s gone by that I’ve had every ingredient needed. I’m buying things that are not native to our household and that’s work, and then making the dinners is labor intensive and I’m a big fan of cleaning as you go, but I always hit a point where I need to rush and everything falls apart from there. 

We always leave the mess and then everyone pitches in after. 🤗

Gaylord

On Monday Delaney started her first summer dance intensive. Dancing with special instructors from 8-3, with 3 different classes. There are 2 other girls from our neighborhood going, so we worked out a nice carpool. 

I dropped them off and then headed up to the Gaylord to meet Elizabeth and Trish. We met up with our guide Olaf to talk the possibility of Women of Light 2028. 👀 

There is a grant available and also, elder Baxter asked if we might like to host the north east area women’s conference. A group recently hosted one in New York City, but it was the day after Adi graduated so there was no way I could go. 

The Gaylord would be *perfect* and we could open it up to everyone. Our conference and the NY one were limited to under 2000 sisters. It would be so amazing to host 5000. 

We toured all of their conference rooms and lunch spaces, then Olaf treated us to lunch at their fancy restaurant. We each ordered the salmon plate and talked specifics with him, and then he left us to enjoy our lunch and talk amongst ourselves. 

We would love to host this event again, and work with a counterpart that could then take over for the following conference. I’d hate to let all the lessons we learned go to waste. 

Olaf validated our parking for the day, so I spent an hour walking the harbor. National harbor is beautiful. 

I found a guy on instagram that talks about things to do with your teen that I’ve really been liking. He made a list of things to do with you’re teen this summer and one was to take a picture every week, so here we go!

Stake conference

On Sunday morning we got the crew up early for a special stake conference youth meeting with Elder Hall. We let the girls sit with friends for the youth meeting and then all sat together for the main session.

I was surprised when they announced Christine and I on the communications coordinating council and sustained us. I was surprised to find that it really means something to have mostly my ward, but also my  stake family sustain me in my calling. And even know what I’m doing really. 

Elder Hall had everyone doing a lot of standing and sitting, so I grabbed pictures one time he asked the youth to stand. It was a really great conference and so fun to see so many friends. 

Noreen asked Frankie to make a Father’s Day banner for Sunday. This is her 4th one and she’s getting pretty good!

She added the cutest designs on the ties! And come to find out, they are making them tie keychains, so she was inspired. 

We are in a major draught, but thankfully have gotten a little rain recently. Delaney has always loved playing in the rain. 

Adi had her first temple prep class that night, and Frankie had a meeting for her educators rising conference and it was a lovely Sunday. 

Jubilee

We all went to the dentist last week. We love Dr. Hawkins and had put in our files to see only her, but somehow Frankie and I got one dentist and Delaney and Adi got a different one, and none of them was Dr. Hawkins.

Matt went that week too and saw the same one Frankie and I did. And the three of us that saw the same dentist each had one small cavity. 🙄 I’m not saying it’s not true, just that I want my regular dentist. *update to today - I had my little cavity filled yesterday by Dr. Hawkins. I was hoping she’d see it and be like - no, that’s nothing, but no such luck. 

Also this week Frankie had her 2 hour driving instructor time. She’s got about 30 hours now, so we’re halfway there and she’s pretty okay.  

On Friday I was able to spend some time with a friend fighting a battle with cancer. I’ve heard people say you shouldn’t call it a battle, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s awful. It was a difficult, but also sacred few hours. 

That night we went to Abby’s graduation party where I took zero pictures. They had delicious Hawaiian food (Matt and I felt right at home) and cute pictures of Abby though the years. It was fun to hang out, and then Adi and Delaney asked to stay longer to play games. 

Around 10 they asked me to come pick them up, but when I got in the car Adi texted and said, actually can we stay later. I went anyway and chatted with Sarah and Tony till midnight. Delaney is so antisocial lately that when she wants to be around people, I want to let her. 

On Saturday Matt and I took grandpa to the airport. I had made a big brekkie and then we had a few errandy stops first. It was a good visit with grandpa!

After we dropped him off we had some time to kill before the jubilee, so we went to Karlee’s where I had gone with my Women of Light friends. It’s such a  cute place and was delicious again. 

Then it was on to the Visitors’ Center for our event. Listen, this communications calling is not my favorite but I’ve made a commitment to not complain about it. I’ll just say I was not excited about our event. It was also stake conference that I had to miss and they had a cool leadership session first that I loved to go to and I would have rather been there. 

But the jubilee was good too. I learned a ton and got to meet half of our coordinating council members along with many other communication specialist from other stakes and coordinating councils. I ran into some old stake relief society President friends and got to try some of the yummy fancy food. 

The evening was to celebrate 50 years of the Visitors’ Center. And then in the week leading up to it our DC North and Baltimore directors were deep in talks with Governor Moore’s office about Maryland becoming the second JustServe state in the nation (behind Idaho). That involved the governors office talking to county commissioners and mayors and they were able to get 5 city/counties on board to become JustServe city/counties and so they were recognized on Saturday and also Governor Moore was awarded the JustServe Hero Award. He didn’t come, but sent a special advisor from his office and she was so sweet. 

When Matt and I did the Invited Guests tours at the temple open house they really wined and dined the government people and diplomats. I think I’ve been nervous about somehow disrespecting someone like that, or not knowing how to be formal. I don’t know - it’s weird because I’m not really nervous to meet people like that, but I also feel my inner critic telling me I’m not smart enough and what business do I have representing the church in this way. Anyways, my feelings are all over the place. But this advisor from the governors office was amazing. I talked to her after her speech and told her how much I appreciated her coming and sharing her experience and she gave me a big hug (two actually) and was so personable and anyway, I got this. 

My task for the event was photo releases, which, the expectation changed several times throughout the evening, and then writing up the press release for after the event. Two big jobs that I completed with mild success. 

Matt is more excited about my calling than I am and he was excited to be there and lightly hob knobbed. I also lightly hob knobbed because I was mostly at the welcome table and then learning from the Baltimore peeps about photo releases as they got group pictures of all the JustServe city groups. 

Overall it was a good event and I can see that as relationships are made and strengthened, this will be a fulfilling and interesting calling and I’m sure I’ll come to love it. I do think it’s pretty cool that I’m getting to know members and interfaith/government leaders all over the DMV. 

We had lots to talk about the evening and brought home a tray of cupcakes and cookies for our girls. That’s a pretty good day.