Moran Family Fun

This week I had a hymn stuck in my head. I think most of the hymns I enjoy are ones that make me happy or that I just enjoy singing. For me, that typically has more to do with the way the music feels than what the lyrics say. The hymn Count Your Blessings  is a fun one because of the way the two parts of the chorus repeat the message of the song and overlap each other. However, this week I've had that song in my mind as I've sometimes felt "burdened with a load of care." Through that heavy feeling, this song has been a reminder to me that Heavenly Father is mindful of me and is blessing me daily. It's made my load lighter.  We spent the last seven days in Germany - the first part of the week we were in the Ramstein area for Abigail's soccer tournament and the second part of the week we traveled to eastern Germany so we could go to the Freiberg Temple.  I am so happy we made the time to stay after Soccer Europeans and drive out to Freiberg. As soon o...

I'm working on a semester-long discipleship project for my Institute class. I chose one area of discipleship I wanted to improve and then made a plan to do so over the course of the semester. I decided to document how things are going each week on the blog both as a way to be accountable and because it will give me something to look back on in the future when I might temporarily forget how great God is. Here's my plan: The area of discipleship I would like to improve is remembering. I think I want to work on this now because I'm feeling down about my life and I know I"ll be a better disciple of Christ if I take the time to look for the blessings I'm receiving and to remember the covenants I've made. I'm doing the things I believe the Lord wants me to do and at the same time am going through the biggest challenge I've ever experienced. While I know in my mind  that righteousness doesn't always equal a perfect life free of trials, it's difficu...

2018 was a hard year for Jared at work. He worked hard and did well but he was also really down and just not happy at work. He has always loved his job and being in the Air Force so it was a strange situation. There were a lot of things that contributed to the whole thing, but none of that is super important. The end result was a man who came home most days feeling frustrated, unappreciated, and as if every good idea he had was shut down.  Jared just kept his head down and kept doing what he does best, which is leading and winning. For most of the year, Jared was the S4 Superintendent which is just the Security Forces way of saying that his section was responsible for deployments, weapons training and qualification, vehicles, resources (or spending all the unit's money), and supply and logistics. I'm not really sure how many people he supervised in the S4, but he worked with a great group of Airmen that made a tough year bearable. The Air Force has a pretty robust awards p...

Today is our last full day in Portugal and the first day the weather forecast guaranteed us sunny skies and warm temperatures. We woke up early and headed to the local marina hoping we'd be able to book last minute seats on one of the boat tours that take tourists along the coast to see the many caves up close and then further out into the ocean to look for dolphins. Jared did some research last night to figure out which of the many tour companies offered an experience we'd enjoy and racked and stacked them so we knew where to try first today. Our first and second choices didn't have any seats left on their tours today, but our third option was able to make a phone call and find us a spot on a sailing this morning. We paid for our tickets and still had about an hour before our departure time so we found a table in the shade nearby and settled in to wait. As we were waiting more and more people started to arrive. It turns out this company had five boats going out at the sa...

Today was another fun day in Portugal. It was supposed to be rainy, and it was a little bit in the morning, but mostly it was sunny and warmer than it has been. I actually felt too warm in my long sleeved shirt and there was definitely some AC running in the car. Jared and I have been kind of trading off planning what we're going to do each day. Friday (the fortress and the lighthouse) was me, Saturday (the market and shopping) was Jared, Sunday we both planned, and today I was back in the driver's seat decided what our day's activities would be. We headed a little bit north from here to Silves today. Silves was probably founded by the Romans before being taken over by the Moors. At one point during that period, it was such an important city that it was called the Baghdad of the West. It's less important now and it was a nice quiet town to explore.  The main feature of the town is the castle sitting on top of the hill. The rest of the town sort of spreads out f...

Another conference has come and gone and it was glorious!  The choir was so beautiful Abigail was CRYING and has decided that she wants to grow up, move to Utah, and sing with the choir.  Since conference doesn’t start here until late we slept in this morning. I woke up about an hour before everyone else and I think we were all up and moving by 1030? It rained pretty much all day today. We did some laundry and hung it outside in the balcony and all over the kitchen. I’m sure it will be dry by the time we fly home on Wednesday.  Jared and I left the girls at the apartment and took a little drive to the marina to explore. Later this week we plan to go on a boat tour to some of the cliffside caves and dolphin watching. We wanted to scope out the area first so we’d know where to park, find the boats, etc later this week. The whole area felt weirdly empty when we were driving around. I don’t know if it was because it’s Sunday or because it was raining. Maybe both? ...

Saturday was much more relaxed than Friday but it was also kind of tough for me. I started getting a migraine in the morning so I took some medicine and then tried my best to just roll with it. I kept my eyes shut and got what rest I could as we drove to our day's destination and prayed that the medicine would kick in enough for me to enjoy the day.  I felt a little off all day, but I was happy I chose to go out with everyone instead of staying behind at our apartment.  Anyway, we went to the market in Loule in the morning because walking around a market is always interesting; you're guaranteed to at least see some displays of beautiful fruits and vegetables. The market is in a beautiful old hall and was filled with stalls selling fresh fish (super stinky but cool to see), fruits, vegetables, flowers, housewares, and baked goods, plus pottery and trinkets for the tourists. On Saturday, the market spreads out into the surrounding streets so there was lots to see, taste, a...