Yeah for vacation! We're in southern Utah right now staying with my family and we'll be up to see Jeremy's family Wednesday. Since I haven't seen my little sister in over a year and we'll get to meet her son for the first time today, I'm pretty excited. It's also a lot of fun to spend time with my older sister and see how much her two kids have grown. My niece, Kaylee (almost 4 years old), is such a talker! And little James (9 months old) isn't so little anymore. He's eating whatever we can feed him and sure loves to smile.
We don't have any pictures yet from this week to put up, but I had some thoughts as we were flying into Salt Lake. Oh, before I forget, Katie Bug did GREAT with the flight. She didn't cry at all. We fed her as we were taking off, then tried a binkie for the landing. She kept pulling the binkie out then trying to shove it back in her mouth sideways or backwards. I tried to help her, but she liked it more the other way. I'm just happy that she did so well. Southwest even gave her a pair of wings and a certificate for her first flight. Go team!
I love Salt Lake, but I am not a fan of the air. As we were flying in it looked like we were leaving the sun to head into soup. When we were first coming into the valley you could look down and see a very distinct line between the clean air and the pollution (if anyone's not seen this it's polluted air trapped below clean air due to the mountains surrounding the valley of Salt Lake). The closer we got to the smog, the more that line blurred, then before you knew it you weren't sure if you were in it or not. Once we landed and got out, it looked like the air was clear where you were standing, but it looked hazy in the distance. This made me think about temptation, choices, and just the world in general. If you stay out of it or above it completely, you can see the black and white so clearly. But the lower you go, or the closer you get to bad things, the more gray you see, the more blurred the line becomes until you're not quite sure if you're in it or not. Then when you are in it, it still looks like you're OK, but things far off seem to be what's not right. The only way out of it is to rise above. That takes effort. You have to drive out of Salt Lake to get away from that terrible air. But if you never leave it you get used to it, begin to think it's normal, then you don't even notice when you're breathing in the pollution all the time.
Then we were sitting in church on Sunday and the theme was simplifying life. It's hard to hear the voice of the Lord if we're always super busy with our lives, even if it's busy with good things. They talked about how when you're stressed out from being busy, it's impossible to feel peace and very difficult to reach out to others in kindness, let alone feel our own worth. I sat there thinking about what I'd seen as we were flying into Salt Lake and realized how I pack my days and weeks so full that I am stressed out and loose my patience so easily. It's like I could see myself letting the bigger priorities slip by (enjoying my family and loving my neighbor) for lesser concerns. Life is full of so many choices, and I think some of the most important ones are the little day to day ones - the ones that say how we really spend our time and energy. It's hard to remember that and I know I need to take the time to rise above the smog in my life to really see what life is about, or I end up discouraged and frustrated a lot of the time.
All in all life is good and we'll be posting more pictures by next week of our fun time visiting family. Till next time then.
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