Carol Tuttle, friends, and off to Duke!

Monday night we went to Westminster to attend a lecture/book signing/Q and A by Carol Tuttle. I was very excited Jeff got to come as well since he worked from home this week. Carol has a daughter in Arvada and she was watching her grandkids, so she set this up. She talked about the message of "yes I can." Sometimes we feel inspired or driven to do certain things, but we have to pray to be shown how to accomplish it. Sometimes we feel we "need" to do things, and that's when we can say no. When we get to what we "want" to do and what we feel we "get" to do, that's when we are energized to accomplish things, even if we don't know how to go about doing it. She shared how she was a very depressed mother of 4 young children living in Danville/Walnut Creek area. Her husband was getting an executive MBA and while she came from a very dysfunctional family, she knew enough to know that how she was parenting was not good for her kids. She ended up connecting with some women from church and attending a 12 step group and another support group. She went to a psychotherapist for 2 years. But while she felt like she understood the "why" of her issues, she wasn't sure "what" to do to heal, because while all of this was good, she wasn't totally healed. And she knew there was that capacity for total healing because of her religious beliefs.

She became aware of EFT and Reiki and ended up being certified and well known for it. That was challenging because it was something very fringe and not widely accepted, especially in the church (she's LDS by the way). But this started her healing process....she also does tapping.
She talked about when we have things we WANT to do in life and things that we GET to do, that we feel God wants us to do as part of our life's journey, that we have to be willing to say "yes I can." And once we show that faith, then we pray every step of the way to be shown what to do next. When she knew she would get to write a book, she had no interest in doing something like that. But she prayed and felt like she should commit to writing 15 hours a week, and she did that faithfully. The book was published quickly, which is unusual, and though it is out of print now, it served a specific purpose. It was the only book (among LDS authors) whose author used her own name when talking about sexual abuse.

When she just wanted to do something (meaning she didn't feel a divine calling from God to do it), it was running a marathon. She thought she didn't have the right body type, then saw a bunch of runners post marathon and thought, if they can do it, so can I. So she set that goal and things showed up in her life to help her accomplish it. She went on to run 15 marathons in 4 years. She said that got a little crazy, so she backed off. And her first one was over 5 hours, but it showed her that things she previously thought were impossible, were actually possible.  

As for energy typing, the purpose is to create more understanding, get rid of confusion, interference, and judgment we often have for each other. When that is gone there can be more love and joy among people. All types can be accomplished (sometimes people feel like type 1's are just fun, but don't get anything done), but the typing just allows you to understand your true nature and how you best operate so that you can accomplish your goals in a way that works best for you, rather than comparing yourself to someone else.

I thought it all very interesting and was grateful Jeff could come with me. Since we stayed the night on Westminster, on Tuesday I took the kids to the Children's Museum and they had so much fun. It's such a great place and we met Tara and Blake there.

They climbed the big tower. Ryan got a little lost and didn't make it up, so Lily and Blake went again with him and Lily took extra care to make sure Ryan was ok every step of the way.

Max had so much fun in the sand. He could have stayed there all day. He did fine for the most part, but did start throwing the sand near the end. 

The kids are always so luck that whenever we go, there's never really a line for the zipline. So they just keep doing it again and again and again.  

We have never played in the water before, so this was fun. They floated boats down and filled up  water cans and dumped them out. And it's great that they could play in water, but without having a deep creek where they could fall in.  

Luckily I happened to have an extra pair of pants for Max, because he did not like being wet after. He loves getting wet, but not staying wet. 

I volunteered at Lily's school Wednesday and did some sight word testing. Lily was the only one who knew all the words, so I felt like I had to tell the teacher's helper, Ms. Renee, I wasn't cheating and she really got them all right. She is pretty amazing with her reading skills, it's so fun to see how excited she is to read and learn.

On Thursday Janna and Jack drove from Aurora to visit for the morning. Lily and Jack (he is also in kindergarten) play so well together. Janna and I were able to have a nice visit, we ate lunch together, and then they headed back. Jeff left a few hours after that for Duke for a couple weeks. Neither of us can believe it is his VERY LAST residency! He has accomplished so much and it is incredible all the experiences he has had. He was feeling very stressed leading up to this one with all the pre-reading, a talent show he was trying to put on, recruiting efforts, and working at a new job. I will be praying for him a lot these next two weeks.

Friday I volunteered at Lily's school again while the boys played at Blakes. I helped organize the filing system, which I really enjoyed doing to help make it easier for people to file. Saturday we went to the Cooper 5k (I didn't run, Lily just did the kid's race). It started out okay, but then by the end the kids were melting down and I was just tired. Both Max and I didn't sleep great so he was cranky and so was I. But I found that it's kind of nice to not run the race because the kids can play in the bounce house and get their faces painted before everyone else comes back. I think I was crazy, but after that I went shopping for some maternity clothes. I just needed some pants so badly and we were close by so we did it. We made it out alive and I was just very grateful to have a nap when we got home. The kids then went to a birthday party at Kaitlynn Kelly's house during Max's nap time, so that was a nice break for me.

Lily was excited to run, Ryan decided not to. However, right after starting, Lily fell. She was a bit scared because with so many kids, she wasn't able to stand up right away. She came to me crying and very upset. I was also dealing with a crying Ryan and Max (I can't remember why), so I was at a loss of what to do since she wanted to keep going, but needed some help. A very nice woman came along and helped her run to get going, and then she was fine. I was so grateful for a stranger's kindness. 

Lily finishing up the race. She was sad that when she came in there weren't many people left and it was just little kids. But I told her she did a great job to keep going even when she fell, so I was very proud of her. 

The kids had fun taking pictures of themselves while I was looking for clothes. 

I was a little nervous how Sunday would be, but it turned out much better than I anticipated. I went to choir and the kids did well during sacrament meeting. At one point both Lily and Ryan wanted to lay their head on my lap and Max wanted to sit on my lap, but Elizabeth Cormack took Lily so that helped immensely. After church it was nap time the Lily got our family home evening ready. I organized an FHE book so it's easy now to choose which activity we will do and she is always so great to get us to do it.

Having fun talking to Daddy. 

Showing Jeff their birthday party favor goodies.