Moran Family Fun

This evening we drove to see the Roy City Christmas lights. I got a glimpse of them when I was driving by the city offices a few nights ago and I knew we needed to go back and check them out. There are over a million lights covering the city offices and the surrounding grounds and it's totally free to walk around and enjoy the lights. On the hour and half hour, there is an entire light show! You just tune your radio to a certain frequency and there is music playing and all the lights turn on and off in time with the music. It was so cool! I love that the city just does this. It's totally free and just a perfect little family Christmas activity. You could stay in your car the entire time if you wanted to, but how fun would it be to get out and dance in the middle of the light show? We love Christmastime! 

Can you believe all of our Christmas things made it here with only one ornament casualty? After the mess with our piano and our cuckoo clock, I was a little apprehensive wondering what we'd find when we opened the boxes of decorations. But one broken ornament is a blessing for sure. The only thing we weren't so happy about was that the girls were missing all of their ornaments. They each have their own box of ornaments that we've added to each year and they just aren't here. Our best guess is that they're with our things that are in storage right now. However, without all of those things, we were worried that our tree would be looking pretty bare.  Somehow it took all stinking day to decorate one average-sized tree. Part of that was because we slept in and part was because we ended up going out three separate times to get more lights and ornaments. We had two functioning strands of lights and several that were only half-lit and ended up in the bin. We thought five s...

Thanksgiving! It's really such a great holiday. For starters, there's all that yummy food and enough sides on the table that everyone can find something they love to eat. Forget the turkey, the sides are the stars of the show. My favorite place to be is at home and what else is there to do on Thanksgiving but be at home with the people you love? Sure, preparing the feast takes some effort but I love to cook so that's another thing to love about Thanksgiving. Throw in a four or five-day weekend because it always falls on a Thursday and you've got the recipe for a really fantastic holiday.  This year started off really well when I woke up and walked into the kitchen to find this waiting on the counter for me. My brother is always thoughtful and he knows what I like - caffeine without calories. In the morning we had a family 5K Turkey Trot! It was sunny and cold but it was also worth it to wake up and move our bodies and have fun together at the beginning of the day.  My s...

A couple of months ago, and probably for longer than that if I really think about it, I just couldn't handle social media anymore. Twelve years ago when I first got a Facebook account it was different. Remember when you had to read things on your feed to know what was going on in people's lives and not just scroll through pretty pictures? I really do appreciate social media because we've seen a lot of people come and go from our lives and it is a good way for me to feel at least a little bit connected to all those good friends and to our family. What used to be a way to see what was happening in the lives of people I know and love had become an almost constant stream of contention. Fighting about politics for sure, fighting about COVID, it seemed as if people were using social media solely to argue about things others post. What happened to cute pictures of babies and the yummy salad you had for lunch? I'm sure they were still there, but the social media algorithm maker...

About four years ago one of Jared's coworkers was preparing to move from England to the States. He had a beater car that they didn't plan to ship to their new home and they had a buyer but the deal kind of fell through at the last minute. And that's how we ended up buying a 1997 4Runner for $300 even though we already had two perfectly good cars. Over the past four years, those two newer nicer cars have been sold but the 4Runner is still with us. Samantha took a picture of me while I was pumping gas today and I didn't know she'd done it until I opened my camera roll tonight. That little sticker on the fuel door is one of many bumper stickers on this car; the liftgate is plastered with them. Even though our car runs and has reliably gotten us from point a to point b every time we've needed it to, I really want a new car. I know I sound spoiled and ungrateful and maybe I am a little. I'm just ready to have a nicer car again. Our plan is to wait and see where w...

Sunday is the very best day of the week. First and most importantly, we have church on Sunday, and man, do I love church. It's been a strange year for worshiping with the switch to church at home, and then church at church, and then a mix of church at home and at church. Right now in our ward, we've split the congregation in half and we trade off weeks attending services in person. On the off week, the service is on Zoom so we can still be part of things. We only have sacrament meeting at church and all the other meetings - Sunday school, relief society, young women, everything - is done over Zoom. So we go to church for the sacrament and then head home and have an hour or so before it's time to log on for that week's second hour of meetings. It's definitely different, but I'm grateful to be able to meet together at all. But really, no matter where I physically am for church on Sunday, taking the sacrament and learning more about the gospel is the highlight of m...

 This semester I've been taking an apparel construction class. The syllabus describes it as a course for students with little or no sewing experience, which I know is not me, but it's a prerequisite for any higher level sewing courses so I registered for the course. We've been focusing on the basics of sewing and working on learning all sorts of different sewing techniques from blind hems to buttonholes and everything in between. I've actually been learning a lot about sewing and about what I've been doing wrong as well as what I've been doing right. Since any sewing ability I have has been learned informally, my way of doing things doesn't always line up with the correct way.  Each week I have a portfolio assignment which is just a sample of the different sewing techniques we're going to be applying to our project that week. For example, this week we sewed buttonholes and buttons on a shirt so the portfolio assignment was completing one buttonhole on a ...

Natalie is our difficult child. Her brain works in a way that makes total sense to her but that is hard for the rest of us to understand. Of course, we love her, we loved her before she was even born, and we can't imagine our family without her. But it can be difficult to feel love and acceptance toward someone when you don't understand what they care about and who is just so different and has a hard time fitting in even within your own family and has some behaviors that are kind of hard to be around. It's not that she's terrible, she's just not easy. I pray more about Natalie lately than any of our other children because I want her to be happy and I want myself to be happy with her. What I'm learning is that I need to stop looking at the ways Natalie is difficult and instead focus on all the things we love about her.  She is an outside the box thinker. She likes to look at things from new angles and find solutions that are different from the typical. Her creati...

I kind of hate the phrase new normal. Really, I hope the things we're doing to deal with this pandemic never become normal. I get that so much in our day to day lives and routines has changed because of Covid-19 and change is uncomfortable and usually something we just plain don't like. The idea that any of this could become permanent is not something that I enjoy considering. New normal. Think about some synonyms for those words. Strange standard. Unusual routine. People aren't going to be wearing masks forever. There will be concerts and plays again. We'll interact with people without a plexiglass screen separating us. Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas gatherings with family and friends will be a thing.    I think we could all take a minute and think about the fact that just because something is familiar doesn't make it good for us. There are some things about pandemic life that I like quite a lot and I'd be happy if they become more a part of the way we live...

For the past few months, we have been blessed to have a bonus daughter living with us. Laura was Emily's companion this time last year. When she was released from her mission she needed a place to stay while waiting for her student visa to be processed so she can attend school at BYUI. The wheels of the state department and immigration are moving even slower than usual thanks to covid and while I'm sure that's been frustrating for Laura, it's been a huge blessing for our family. We love having Laura live with us.  She is so special and has the kindest, most generous spirit. Laura is the kind of person who sees something that she can do to help others and just does it without hesitation. Earlier this week Val was feeling sick and Laura spent HOURS sitting on the living room floor playing Legos with Corbin so Val could get some rest. She is always doing the dishes even when it's not her week do to the dishes. She leaves little notes to let people know what she loves a...

A long time ago we spent what felt like a great deal of money to purchase a used piano. We were so happy to have a piano in our home and it's been a blessing to have that old upright Rippen piano travel with us from house to house over the past 18 years. The little piano skills the girls have (Madison really worked hard to develop her piano skills, she's the best player of us all) started with lessons on the piano. Learning parts for choir or musical numbers happened around the piano. Family Home Evening opening songs were always played on the piano. Even though we don't play it all that much, it's hard to imagine not having a piano in our home. The sides of the case are totally separated from the bottom board and the metal frame and soundboard inside. On the opposite side you can actually see sunlight coming through from behind the piano because there's such a big gap.  Moving is hard on a piano and we've moved ours now twelve times. This last journey was one m...

It's said that good intentions pave the road to hell. Well, I always intend to exercise each day but it doesn't happen nearly often enough. So for me, good intentions pave the road to poor health? Yesterday was Monday and Monday is, as everyone knows, the only day to start an exercise program or a diet or any other new habit and I was going to get out and exercise. To make it more likely to actually happen, I got dressed in my workout clothes first thing in the morning. My thinking was that if I was feeling less than motivated I would already be ready to exercise and have no excuse for skipping.  I pulled on those workout pants at 0700 and I didn't actually work out until almost 1700. The ten hours in between were spent finding all sorts of other things to do besides exercise. It's so easy to get distracted by other things like planning dinners, running some quick errands, or talking on the phone. There are two benefits to hanging around in your fitness wear and postpon...

  Today's blog was written by Samantha Moran Today was a continuation of the birthday celebrations. Emily had to work this morning, so the rest of us went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Draper. We saw lots of cool things like penguins, snakes (I hate snakes), sharks, and jellyfish. It took us two hours to do the whole thing, but it was a great start to the day! Then we took a small trip to Ikea because we love Ikea. This is one of the cool Jellyfish we saw! This is me at Ikea! After our adventure at the aquarium, we went and picked up Emily from the hotel and got some lunch. Then we all went shopping, except for Natalie who doesn't like to shop, at the Outlets at Traverse Mountain. We got take-out for dinner and then went swimming in the pool. We had a second dinner after that and then Natalie, Emily, and Sammy (myself) went and worked out in the gym at the hotel. That's all for today Thanks folks!  This is our pizza from the second dinner. It was HUGE!!

We celebrated a birthday today! Emily is now twenty-one and we've been partying all day long. Not really all day because there was still regular life to attend to, but we did what we could to make her family only birthday fun.  This morning Emily's boyfriend left a gift basket filled with some of her favorite things and a sweet letter on the front porch. In the afternoon she delivered some birthday cheesecake to him. There's been lots of dropping off notes in mailboxes since they can't see each other right now but we live literally one street away from his house.  A stuffed animal might seem strange as a gift for a twenty-one-year-old, but sock monkeys have been a favorite of Emily's for a long time so this gift from Jared was perfect. Plus she's been wanting more BYU gear! He stayed up pretty late to wish Emily a happy birthday and watch her open this gift because he's such a great dad.  Emily requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting AND a cheesec...

This is the only picture I took today. I was sitting at a red light and realized the light was pretty sweet for a selfie. So the picture happened and so did watching the light for the change from red to green. Why am I wearing a mask in my own car? Because I was in a hurry and was driving a couple of minutes down the road so I decided to keep it on instead of taking the mask off only to put it back on again in two minutes. I always feel kind of silly when I take a selfie. It's okay if it's a group photo because then it's an ussie, but a selfie seems super narcissistic and like a sign of insecurity. Having a camera (and a computer and a phone and a calculator and many, many other things) in my pocket makes it easy to snap quick pictures of anything and everything. However, the ability to do something doesn't equal the need to do that thing. There are definitely downsides to phones and I think that maybe selfies are one of them. I feel like they make it too much about you...

When we lived in Germany we would often listen to Canadian Forces Radio, especially when it was time for Vinyl Cafe  which is a great radio program hosted by the late Stuart McLean. On the program, Stuart tells stories from the fictional life of Dave and Morley. Some of the stories make you cry, most make you laugh until you cry, and they are all so good.  We have a set of four CDs filled with Vinyl Cafe stories that are a lot of fun to listen to on long road trips. One story on those CDs is "Dave Cooks the Turkey" in which Dave promises his wife Morley that he will take care of the Christmas turkey. Come Christmas Eve, Dave realizes he's forgotten to even buy a turkey. He runs to a grocery store in the middle of the night and buys their last remaining turkey, which is a frozen bird. Dave takes the turkey home and, while his wife and kids are volunteering at a soup kitchen, defrosts the turkey with an electric blanket and a blowdryer. Once it was ready to cook, Dave wasn...

Earlier this week Natalie cried about food three separate times. She wanted waffles for breakfast when there weren't any waffles. Then she was hoping to have potstickers for lunch and we didn't have that either. As a Plan B for her lunch she thought pizza rolls would be good. Those also weren't anywhere to be found.  I texted Jared and told him about the day of tears and nothing good to eat. He made the observation that her reaction was a mix of both of us. We both love food more than we should and look forward to our favorite meals. Jared is passionate about food and doesn't always react well when the food he's been hoping to eat isn't available. Seriously, all he asks is that when we have cookies in the house the last one be saved for him. I am not good at fulfilling that wish because cookies are just so tempting. He's often disappointed when he comes home expecting to find a cookie and instead finds an empty cookie jar.  We eventually landed on something ...

Sam. Sammy. Samantha. Sammy Sue. Samantha Fenway. That's a lot of names to go by and she answers to any of them! The camera roll on my phone is filled with pictures of Sam. I don't actually take that many pictures of our day to day life, but Samantha is well represented because she loves grabbing my phone, or anyone else's, and leaving surprise photos for them to find later. She adores funny filters, silly faces, and making it look as if she has a double chin. Because of that, I end up deleting scores of pictures of Samantha and keeping mostly the ones where she looks like her normal cute self. However, sometimes I think that I should hang onto those silly, filtered, doubled chinned pictures because they represent a moment in time and a part of Samantha that we all really love. All of the pictures here are from the same day. The ones above are Samantha how she normally looks - like the world's cutest fifteen year old.  All the ones below were from later that night when ...