Lucky Guy, unlucky me

We saw the musical Newsies while we were in New York.  I cannot even begin to tell you how incredible it was.  The actors, the music, the set, everything was amazing.  We have seen the movie at least 400 times at our house, but I think the Broadway production was much better.  Go see it!

The next night, Mark and I bought tickets to see Tom Hanks on Broadway in a new play called "Lucky Guy."  I read an interview with Tom Hanks about how he jumped on this opportunity as soon as he read the script.  I knew about the basic plot--about the journalist who had uncovered a police scandal in  NYC.  I wondered how they would make that into a play, but I figured if Tom Hanks said it was the greatest thing ever and that he couldn't wait to be a part of the production, it had to be good.  It had several other famous TV and movie actors in it as well.  I also saw an article about how the run of Lucky Guy had been extended into July, which I took as another sign that this show was going to be great.

Within 5 minutes, I knew I had wasted a lot of money on tickets.

The storyline was terrible, pointless and boring.  Really, really boring.  But that wasn't the problem

In those first 5 minutes, we heard the F-word 50 times.  No joke.  Every person on stage ended every sentence with an "F-You," or F-something.  It was completely offensive.  This was dialogue?  Mark and I were both dying.  Sure, Tom Hanks was 20 feet in front of me, and his acting skills are phenomenal, but it was not worth sticking around.

I thought it would get better.  Surely, they were just setting up character development of a bunch of hardened journalists in NYC.  It couldn't continue, right?  We were in the middle of a row so we decided to wait until intermission before leaving.  It was the longest hour of my life.  I am not even joking, but they dropped the F-bomb at least another 300 times.  About every 10 seconds.  This really wasn't necessary.  In my eyes, everyone involved in that production lost my respect, from Tom Hanks himself down to the late Nora Ephron who wrote the play.

It was insulting and degrading.  Why would I pay money to go and listen to someone swear for an evening?  We walked out.  I didn't care about the money we had just wasted on the tickets.  It was a sigh of relief to walk out of that theater and into the bright, clean wholesome environment of Times Square....

That tells you how bad it was when Times Square seemed like heaven compared to the trash we had just endured inside the theater.

I used to really respect Tom Hanks, and I have loved almost every movie he has been involved with.  No more.

Before the bombs

Here's some of the adventures we went on during our stay in Boston.  Mark stayed at the hotel and rested his legs while I took Aubrey and Joel on the sight-seeing trip they never dreamed of.  These are just my crummy phone pictures for now.

The first day in Boston was Friday.  It was a very, very rainy day.  I jumped at the chance to see the Freedom Trail with no crowds around!  We bundled up and put on our rain coats and headed out.  There was NOBODY in the touristy parts of Boston.  We walked right into Quincy Market without seeing another person.  I kept telling the kids that normally there were thousands of people out and about, but they thought I was crazy.  We kept on walking over to the North End.  Still NOBODY!  We saw Paul Revere's house and this beautiful statue of him.  Joel kindly pointed out that Paul Revere was riding a stallion....  We walked into the Old North Church by ourselves.  Generally, there is a one-hour line to get in there!  Then we headed across the river to see the USS Constitution.  Again, we were pretty much alone.  It was the best day to see Boston, because everyone else stayed home.

 Saturday I took the kids back to Quincy Market so that they could see the hustle and bustle that I was telling them was normal.  We found this great caricature artist who made a very excellent drawing of Aubrey and Joel.  We wandered around, had lunch at the Green Dragon, and then met Mark for dinner.

 Sunday we went to church, and then I took the kids out to see the two final things in Boston they needed to see.  First, the Boston Tea Party museum.

 Next, was Dorchester Heights.  It is soooo pretty there, and such hallowed ground because of the miracle that happened there in 1776.

 I was a lot more excited about it than they were.

The next day was the marathon, and you know the rest of that story...

Whew!

I am so glad to be back home with all my kids.  Well, at least 6 of my kids.  Abram flies home tomorrow night after he takes his last final.  Then it will be really amazing to have everyone together again, even though it will be for only one week because Abram will be leaving for 2 years on May 1st. We will have a lot to take care of in that one week getting him ready and all packed up to go.

I wish I could have written more while we were in Boston.  Our hotel in Boston did not have a computer for guests to use, and I really, really, really hate typing on my phone.  When we got to New York, our hotel there had a computer, but it was really old and really slow, and there was always a huge line of people waiting to use it.  I finally went to the Apple store on 5th Avenue to get the pictures off of our memory card and to write the few posts I was able to do last week.

We were glued to the news in NYC.  We did our tourist thing (which will be detailed in some following posts) but every TV in every place we went was showing the news about the manhunt.  We were so relieved when it came to such a quick end.  Forever we will be grateful for the law enforcement community who tirelessly worked until the bombers were captured.  And it wasn't out of vengeance that we watched this manhunt.  Although we had been so close to the bombing, and had been affected profoundly by it, our great interest was purely wanting to know that the city of Boston was safe!

So now I am home and ready to get back to my real life.  I started to look through the compact flash card from Mark's camera, and I found some pictures from the week before we went to Boston.  To lighten things up, I think I'll start detailing the events in the few days before we left on our trip.

If you ever need to find Savanna or Zack, the are usually sitting at the bar in the kitchen working on some sort of art project.  This is what they were doing in the days before we left for Boston.

 Aubrey was designing a t-shirt image for our upcoming youth conference.  It is this Saturday, and Mark and I are in charge of it....This week is going to be a killer.

Mark was battling a knee injury, and he spent the week icing his knee and resting.  I am sure that because he did this, his body was able to make it through the race with his knee working fine.  Everything else was cramped and in pain, but his knee was alright.

Noah learned how to mow the lawn.  He had to do the traditional "Mow your name in the lawn on your first time" thing.

Savanna did some pushups.  She is a very strong girl.  When she was very little she would sometimes dress like a superhero (wearing a cape and undies over tights, you know) and tell us her name was "Stronger Girl."  She really is.

 Zachary read some books.

I took care of everything else.  It was a very tiring week.  But I actually had fun cleaning the house.  I had been teaching so much and taking care of other things, that by the time I had two days to work on cleaning the house, I actually enjoyed it.  I sure was tired by the time I sat down on that airplane, though.

I think I'll finish with one of my favorite stories to come out of Boston.  If you've seen this, sorry.  But I love it.  At every Red Sox game, in the middle of the 8th inning, the entire crowd gets on its feet and sings "Sweet Caroline."  It is so fun to be part of that excitement.  This trip, my Red Sox game got rained out, unfortunately.   This week, the Yankees played "Sweet Caroline" to honor those affected by the Boston tragedy.  I thought that was pretty sweet to see rivals showing solidarity. I learned that Neil Diamond himself showed up at Fenway Park on Saturday to sing "Sweet Caroline" in person as his way of doing something small to bring joy and hope to that beautiful city.  We all want to do something to help, but most of the time, we don't know what to do.  I am so glad Neil knew what to do to spread some cheer to the people of Boston.  Yes, I do love Neil Diamond.  Always have, always will.

Mark's story, part 2

Of course Jill,Aubrey,Joel and I are still trying to come to an understanding.  I suppose though such great evil will never be understood.

With Brendas and Stephens thoughts I did contact our local paper the Gresham Outlook yesterday.  They had been trying to contact me. They did a very nice article if anyones interested on theoutlookonline.com.  I have done interviews in the past where you can tell they have a clear agenda before they even ask you anything.  This reporter did a very nice job of listening and for the most part caught and recorded the miracle we experienced.

Mon night I woke up after just about 4 1/2 hours sleep.  The mind was going too fast and too many directions to sleep anymore. Usually fyi the body is happy to sleep more than that the night after a marathon.

This last night I actually slept for 6 hours which was great.  This morning as I was laying in bed very wide awake I began to pray.   A very very very  clear understanding came to me.  I understand much greater now what happened to me during the race.

I do love in the old testament in the book of Isaiah chapter 40. The whole chapter especially the last 3 verses.  Anyway I do always pray for Gods strength because I know I cannot do anything with out it.

So to run 26.2 miles the first half should be at a pace that feels relatively easy(hopefully this is still a fast  pace),pacing to have strength to finish strong and fast to the end.

The first 11-12 miles of the marathon I did run with strength beyond my own. It felt like I was out for an easy jog almost yet I was running really very fast. For how easy those first miles felt things should not have changed where suddenly I was greatly struggling to run a minute per mile slower than what I was running for the first 12 miles.

This morning a new understanding was given me.  If I would have finished the race even a few minutes faster the events for our families would have been so different.  Just a few minutes faster across the finish line and I personally would have been somewhere between the two bombs.  I love to watch marathoners finish and a combination of Stephens and my families would have been in the ground zero zone. The kids that had to go to the bathroom would have gone in and out of the mall right by where the second blast went.  So as I always pray to run faster, in this event I was blessed with such an awesome first half, being so blessed and rewarded for the great effort I put into running fast.  It was an awesome first half.  Very quickly though God through his grace and tender mercy suddenly slowed me down.  I did not understand this at the time.  And àt the time it was happening it was heartbreaking and very physically painful .   But by this miracle Stephens family ,my family, and myself were protected.

Yesterday as we were on the greyhound bus coming up from Boston to NYC(we wanted to go somewhere else on heightened alert with a heavy police presence) Jill was checking her Facebook.  I am glad she does Facebook so she can keep me up to date since i dont.  A friend from BYU Eric, who did beat me last time I ran Boston, spoke of how he wants to run Boston next year as a sign of solidarity.   Difficult to describe but it did help to shift my thoughts.  Next year we will come to Boston.  The good things in the world must not be stopped by a few crazy lunatics.

God does hear and answer prayers.  Sometimes it just takes us a little while to understand the answers.

Thanks again for everyones thoughts and prayers.

btw today i wear my livestrong shirt under my Boston jacket.

Mark

Mark's story, part 1

These are the words that Mark painfully typed on his phone after the race...he is a slow typer and the android keyboard is a killer, so punctuation and fixing mistakes is a pain. Please excuse any spelling or punctuation errors.  I left it exactly as he typed it.

*****

I greatly appreciate everyones concern, thoughts and prayers for my family and myself. It was very crazy and unusual day yesterday and I wasn't able to respond fully to many and I apologize. My thoughts still aren't fully coherent but i'll try to give you all a better description of the physical and emotional roller coaster of yesterday.

First as you all know I have a passion for racing the marathon as fast as possible. I try to race a spring and fall marathon to give the body adequate recovery to go after the next one 100%.  My goal and strong desire is to have one race in my life faster than 3 hours. 

Last fall I was running faster than ever, we had a fairly flat marathon picked in Indianapolis where i hoped to achieve this. 7 weeks before the marathon I got severe IT band issues that shut me down from that race. I thought I was past that phase, but over the last 3 weeks my IT band has been giving me great grief again. So my point here is that I was very concerned I might not be able to run this race also. Fortunately it didnt get as bad as last fall, but it is still not right.  So I went into this race in a fragile state of mind not knowing if my body would even hold together until the finish. Not the state of mind you want to be in before pushing yourself as hard as you can  to race for 26.2 miles.

So when we got to Boston i was taking the marathon seriously to stay off my feet as much as possible, stretching and icing and praying.

So yesterday morning I woke up at 4:45am(yes 1:45 Oregon time) to get to the bus pick up where they take us to the start. The race doesnt start until 10 but there are logistics to getting 27,000 people to the start in the small town of Hopkinton on a narrow road.

At the athletes village in Hopkinton they kept announcing that there are dogs around being trained and not to touch them without the permission
Of the owners.  Yes it struck my brother Stephen and I as odd but we had a lot bigger things on our mind and really didnt pay much attention.  At the start and during the race my muscle under my right IT band was incredibly tight.  I felt stronger than ever and went out at what truly felt to be an easy pace(6:40-6:45 miles). At about mile 12 my quads were trashed. I was at 1:30 at the half.   It was a very tough grind to hold it together for the rest of the race.  My body was out of sync.  Both calves were on the verge of cramping, my hamstrings quads just awful.  My lower back for the last 10 miles was cramping.  I had trouble even rotating to grab cups as I ran through the water stations. My body was in bad shape.  The hills from mile 16-21 were absolutely awful. It was such an emotional relief to finally cross the finish at 3:15. A respectable time that also qualifies me again to come back and do this again next year. Bring it on!!!!

So I could barely walk.  After walking about 100 yards or so I started to get lightheaded and was loosing my thought process. Three people started taking me to the medical tent.  A few minutes later as I got close to the medical tent I could tell my thought process was getting better and the lightheadedness was fading so I told them I was fine and they walked me back to the snack area.  

The wind was blowing I was cold and shivering. I collected my bag from the bus and got my warm clothes on.  I went to the family waiting area letter "d" which was a block over and a block down from where the explosions occurred.

With the brain being depleted of sugar the thought process really is in slow motion. I called my wife to see if my bro had crossed yet. He hadnt. So I started to wander toward where they were watching the race which was centered between where the 2 blasts ended up being. As i was heading that direction i made a turn up a blocked off road that delayed my trip.  As I worked slowly toward jill joel and aubrey and my brothers families watching the race jill called and said they were on their way to the family greeting area. I always love to watch racers finish it is so awesome and emotional to see the accomplishment.  Jill said a couple of the kids had to go to the bathroom, my brother had crossed the finish line and so they left. So I turned around and made my way back to family meeting area. I sat on the curb and waited a few minutes.

Jill came and sat down by me then we heard this loud boom. A few seconds later another boom.  We said to each other that sounded like a bomb.  We looked around and didnt see any panic.  Everyone seemed a little like what was that,  but just carrying on like normal.  A few minutes later my brother came up to us.  He said that there was an explosion behind him.  Maybe 100 yards behind him.  He hadnt even received the food they always give runners. They were sent on. He barely got his personal belongings before they cleared that area. 

So we then knew there had been a couple explosions but had now idea accidental or what.  Then the sirens started.   Initially didn't think too much because ambulance sirens aren't an unusual noise at Marathons. But then there was more and more and more and I think that was the initial response this was bad. And then as it continued we realizes this is real bad. In front of our hotel they had a staging area for ambulances as far as you could see. And they just kept coming. Vehicles were coming in from all over.  The brain really couldnt comprehend or process that what was going on was real.  The medical tent is just a diagonal from our hotel.  We were standing at the street corner trying to figure this all out.  We could see the ambulances going from the staging area to the medical tent. And all sorts of vehicles with siren on coming from everywhere.

We were very wisely advised from our favorite secret service agent to get in our hotel room and hunker down.  After we got in our hotel and were looking out the windows by the elevators on the 22nd floor we heard 3 more booms.  That was a bit freaky.  We later were told that was just the police detonating some suspicious things.

So two stinky runners and our families hunkered down in our ground zero hotel room.  Jills and my phones were both dead so we took turns on the charger. The officials shut off cell phone calls we could text and email. I tried calling my parents a few times not knowing at the time cell phones were shut off.

Usually after a marathon a shower is one of the first things on the agenda.  We were just trying to figure out what to do watching the news and looking at all the police, bombsquads,swat, and a lot of strange vehicles outside our hotel. Hundreds of police/military and hundreds of vehicles. And endless sirens.

With the craziness going my brother decided to get a room at our hotel. He called and reserved it. He went downstairs to get keys and the lobby and restaurants were all vacated. Thats when we found out the hotel was in lockdown.

Even having witnessed what we witnessed I am still in denial that this really occurred.   Stuff like this doesnt happen here.

Definitely an emotional roller coaster.  I do know gods hand kept my brother,  his family and my family safe.  So many things could have happened to us with small differences in the day.  We do count ourselves blessed.  At the same time we mourn for the victims and their families.  We also mourn for the loss of innocence, peace  and security that this tragic event may bring.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers

Marathon photos

These are a few more pictures of the marathon, with some taken just after the bombing.

Stephen finished the race about an hour after Mark.  The second bomb exploded just behind where Stephen's hand is on the other side of the street.

 I snapped this picture of Mark when we found him in the family meeting area.  Then I sat down by him and within one minute we heard the first bomb go off.

 This is a view of the dozens of ambulances lined up along Huntington St. waiting to get to the medical tent to take victims to the hospital.

 Another view of the ambulances lined up outside our hotel trying to get to the victims.

 Our hotel was in a lockdown and we could not get out.  We assembled all our food to see what we had to survive on.  We hadn't eaten since about 6AM, and by now it was 4PM, and Mark and Stephen had just run 26.2 miles!  We were starving.  It is a good thing my sister in law brought cookies!

I took this picture with my phone after the nine of us settled down in our hotel room to process what had happened.  We were all in shock.  I can never forget the looks on the faces of everyone we passed as we walked to the hotel as the new of the horror of what happened was reaching all the runners and families.

Look for the miracles

It has taken me a couple of days to process the events of Monday.  It wasn't until we were riding a bus yesterday to New York that my brain had time to really just think about things.  I survived a terrorist bombing.  My husband and our two kids who were with us survived a terrorist bombing.

Mark and his brother hopped on a school bus shuttling runners to Hopkinton at 6AM Monday morning.  The race doesn't start until 10AM, but it takes a while to shuttle 27,000 runners 26 miles to the starting line.  At about 7AM, the kids and I headed out to claim our viewing spot along Boylston.  I know from being at the marathon before that the best place to watch is on Boylston between Ring Rd and Exeter Street on the south side of the road in front of Lord and Taylor.  We spread out our chairs and began a long and chilly wait for the race to begin, knowing it would be five hours until we saw the first of the elite runners come through.  I was wearing 3 shirts, a jacket, a hat, 2 pairs of gloves, a scarf and I was freezing.  I could not stop shaking.

We watched the spectators start to fill in the street all along Boylston.  I also noticed something I had not seen at the race before.  Police were walking both sides of the street with bomb-sniffing dogs.  They passed by a couple of times, and I just figured this was part of some new precautions in our changing world.  I had no idea that at the starting line the same thing was happening.  Mark and his brother were seeing the same thing--police and dogs.  The announcement kept coming over the loud-speakers, "Don't be alarmed. There are dogs here doing a training exercise.  Don't touch the dogs unless you have permission from its owner."  They both thought it was odd, and it was definitely something that had not happened before.  They both filed it in their brains under "Whatever" because they had many more things to worry about that morning.

Mark had been battling an IT band injury since September which seemed to have resolved, but it actually flared back up in a very bad way about 3 weeks before the race.  Last fall, Stephen had a cuboid stress fracture and had been forced to take a few months off of training.  They both knew their bodies were a little fragile for the marathon that day, but they are Dorroughs, and you give whatever you are doing everything you've got if that is your last name.

My sister-in-law and 3 of her kids from Connecticut joined us at 8AM.  The waiting went much faster with a friend to talk to and cousins for the kids to hang out with.  We talked and laughed and just enjoyed the sights and sounds of the pre-race.  Before we knew it, the wheelchair racers started to come through the finish line.   By this time, the crowd is honestly 15 people deep on Boylston.  Every inch of sidewalk is covered with spectators packed as tightly as they can squeeze.

There are always police along the last 200 yards to the finish line, but usually they stand about every 50 feet or so.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere walked in at least 100 cops in their fluorescent yellow coats.  The back of their coats said, "Special Ops."  They stood facing the crowd about every 10 feet along that last stretch of the race.  And then another 100 cops came out of nowhere on black bicycles.  They separated into two columns and completely filled in other areas near the finish line.  This show of force, along with the dogs from earlier, started telling me that something was going on.  I shivered more intensely and couldn't stop.

The elite runners came through, first the women and then the men.  I have no idea who won.  I was too busy trying to control my trembling and also trying to take good photographs of the elite finishers.  After the elites had finished the race, the police presence completely disappeared.  First the bikes took of in their straight lines, and then the special ops guys marched off.  Eventually all of the police were gone and the regular-Joe runners started to come through the finish.

I knew that Mark would come in anywhere between 3:00 and 3:15.  He crossed the finish line at 3:15:56, and I could tell his body was in terrible shape.  I will post more of his story later, but he was cramping from his calfs all the way up to his back.  Mark was in the finisher's area getting some food and hydration and he called me and said he was going to make his way to me to watch for Stephen. We expected him to cross the finish line around 3:50.  I finally saw him run by and he finished in 4:01.  He was hurting as well, but he finished with a big smile on his face.  I called Mark and told him to go back to the family meeting area and wait for us because we had seen Stephen. In addition, the kids had to go to the bathroom so we were leaving our spot on Boylston so the kids could take care of business.

We found Mark sitting on a curb in the family meeting area, which is one block south of Boylston along Stuart St.  I sat down next to him, and within one minute we heard the first explosion.  We looked at each other and he said, "That sounds like a bomb!"  I am usually the one who jumps to the worst-case-scenario in my thinking, and Mark is always the one trying to look for the positive.  I knew he was right, but my brain was racing to think of something else that could have made that enormous BOOM.  I heard the second BOOM, and at that moment I knew it was a bombing.  I thought back to September 11th and watching the first tower burning and thinking it had been a terrible accident.  When the second tower was hit, that is when I knew it was an attack and no accident.  It was the same emotion at the marathon.  The second explosion told me that this was very, very bad.  The street full of happy runners and their families was suddenly silent as we all tried to process what we had just heard.  Everyone's faces changed from joy to worry.  Did we really just hear two bombs go off?

At this moment, Mark's brother found us.  We took some pictures and then we started to hear sirens.  And more sirens.  And more sirens.  At that moment we knew for sure that it was a bombing attack.  Stephen told us that he had seen the two explosions behind when he was in the finisher's area.  They rushed him out before he could get any water or food, but there was still no panic in the family meeting area.  We talked to a runner who said he had finished the race just before the bomb went off, but they had rushed him out without giving him a medal.  Another runner heard this, handed the guy his own medal and walked away.

We decided to walk to our hotel and watch the action from there, as we had a perfect view of the finish area and Boylston Street.  On our way there, my phone started going crazy.  I tried to call my parents, but we could not call out.  I sent my parents a text saying, "We are OK."  I quickly posted on facebook that there had been an explosion but that we were fine.  My phone kept dinging with people texting and making sure we were OK, and the sirens kept coming.  My head was spinning.  But I had finally stopped shivering.

Mark got a text from our favorite secret service agent telling us to get to our hotel and hunker down as there were likely more bombs.  All 9 of us crammed into our room on the 22nd floor at the Marriott to watch and wait. The line of ambulances waiting to get to the medical tent was unreal.  At least 100 ambulances were lined up along Huntington trying to get to the tent at Copley Square.  We had an aerial view of the police, FBI, army, secret service, and bomb squads spreading out all over the area. It was fascinating and horrible.

One siren in a big city echoes.  Imagine every siren in the city at once rushing to the same area.  It was deafening.  I will never forget the sound of the blasts.  I will never forget the sound of the sirens.  I will never forget the sound of my phone dinging.  I didn't realize until we were watching video footage of the bombings on the news that there was a sound I had missed.  I am forever grateful that we were not on the street to hear the screaming.

And then I saw videos of just after the bombs.  I cried seeing images of cops and volunteers charging into the blast to help.  They didn't know if there would be more explosions.  They only knew that their help was needed.  I thought of the quote from Mr. Rogers, which I posted at the beginning of this post.  You will always find people helping.

Next, we saw a map of where the explosions had occurred.  I had been sitting directly between the bombs the entire day.  For almost seven hours, I had been sitting with my kids exactly between the blasts.  My kids had been inside the mall across from the second blast at least 5 times that morning to get warm or use the restroom.

If Mark had been walking to meet us, he would have been walking through the area of the first blast when it went off. If he had run as fast as he wanted to that morning, he would have been with us and we would have stayed right in our seats on Boylston.  If the kids had not had to use the bathroom, we all would have been sitting there between the bombs, and we would have seen and heard all of the horror.  If Stephen had been a few minutes slower, he would have been right there in the explosion. I can't even list the many small miracles that happened that day to keep us out of danger.  We were guided in every step that day, and when we were all back at the hotel together, we offered prayers of gratitude.  We have stopped saying "If."  All we can do now is say, "Thank you."

In the week leading up to our trip, Mark had some very powerful experiences where he felt profoundly of God's love for him and that God would be with him and that he would be protected on race day.  Mark had hoped that perhaps these experiences were foretelling of great success and strength during the race and possibly of his joining the elusive sub-3-hour marathon club.  We now know that God was telling him something much more important.  God loves him and was with him that day, but in a much better way than he had imagined.  The victory of his race was overpowered by the emotions of having our family all together and safe after the tragedy that day.

Through the darkness of that day, there was much to be thankful for. The bombings brought our nation together, and reminded everyone of what is really important in life.  Life, after all, is a marathon. As Paul said  in Timothy 2:7, "I have fought a good fight.  I have finished my course.  I have kept the faith."  No matter what.

At dinner Monday night, Joel started tearing up.  It was sinking in.  Who would do this?  Why would someone attack innocent people?  How can someone be so evil?

A friend posted this reminder yesterday of why bad things are allowed to happen.  This has always been a favorite Old Testament story of mine, but I had not seen its true meaning until yesterday.
Rabbi Harold Kushner  discussed the Newtown CT tragedy. He was asked "Why did God let this happen?" He answered by citing the passage from I Kings 19 (where an angel tells Elijah to go up to the mountain): "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." Rabbi Kushner then said that god was not in the tragedy, but rather god is in what happens after the tragedy - those who ran toward the scene to help, the outpouring of love and support, and the building of community. A beautiful interpretation. God was not in the bombs, but god will be in what comes now.

Alive and well

 I have a long post to write soon, but for now here are two pictures from yesterday after the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

Mark finished about an hour before the bombing.  Stephen finished about 10 minutes before the blasts, and he saw the bombs go off as he was in the finish area.

We were one block from the bombings and we are very blessed to have all been together when it happened so that we could all go back and hunker down in our hotel together.  The picture below is of the lineup of ambulances waiting to take victims to the hospital.

Mark ran a 3:15:56 and re-qualified for next year.  We will be there in 2014.

Flashback

Our computer in the kitchen rotates through pictures for the screen saver.  Yesterday, some pictures of Zachary caught my eye, and I was stunned at the change he had made in two years.

The first pictures were some of our family at the beach in 2010.  Zachary had just turned 4, and he was terrified of the ocean.  Really terrified.  Even walking on the sand near the water he wanted to hold my hand, and when I would pick him up and step out into the waves, even his toes would curl up in fear of the ocean.  He was not having a very fun time at the beach, that is for sure.  The rest of the kids were having a blast running out and playing in the freezing cold ocean.  Zack would not let go of me for anything.

I then saw pictures come up of Zachary in Belize last summer.  In Belize in 2011, Savanna taught him how to swim in the pool on the last day we were there, and then in 2012 in Belize, Zack was not afraid to swim in the pool or the ocean.  He spent all day in the water.

I love this picture of Zack snorkeling and holding a real live shark!  It is hard to believe he used to be such a scaredy-pants.

I also love this picture of Zack making an underwater heart with his hands.

I wish I could

This was an assignment Noah wrote for school:

Dear Mom,

I wish I could go back in time and fix all my mistakes; but the biggest blunder I want to fix is the time I broke the microwave.  

It all started a few days before I destroyed the microwave when Uncle Seth came over to see if we wanted to go see something cool in Portland.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t come.  Later that evening, he showed us a video online of what he did in Portland.  He was shooting a pumpkin cannon with some of his buddies from where he works.  Then he asked if we wanted to see something else cool and he asked if we had a spare CD.  He gave him a blank CD and he walked over to our microwave.  He told all of us to come to him.  He put the CD in the microwave and pushed the 5 button.  The CD was in the microwave for 2 or 3 seconds.  Then it got cool!  I can’t explain what it looked like, but the appearance of the CD made you want to do it again.  After 5 seconds the timer beeped and we took the CD out.  He handed the CD to me and I passed it around to all the kids in our family.  We each inspected it and we thought it was awesome.  I didn’t know it yet, but I was going to break our microwave by trying to repeat this amazing trick that my Uncle had taught me.  You were not too happy that he had shown us this trick, and you warned us that if anybody tried it again we would be in big trouble.

I was an 11-year-old boy.  I had just seen the most fantastic thing I could imagine in a microwave.  How was I supposed to never do that again?

A couple of days later, I grabbed another CD and ran to the microwave.  I opened the microwave and put the CD inside.  I set the timer for 10 seconds and pushed the start button.  The CD started to do the same thing it had done when Uncle Seth had done it; however, at 7 seconds, there was a really little fire on the CD.  I quickly stopped the microwave and waited a minute or two before I took the CD out.  I ran it through water and put it in my room.  The next morning, I cooked a burrito in the microwave, but the burrito was still cold after the time was up.  I cooked it again and it got a little warmer.  I realized that the microwave was slowly breaking.  Over the next couple of days, you noticed this as well.  Finally you asked me if I had just so happened to put another CD in the microwave.  I admitted that I had put a CD in microwave.  You got mad and gave me a huge punishment.  I learned to never do that again, and I never did it again.

I felt so horrible that I broke a $600 microwave with a 6-cent CD.  I wish that I could go back in time to take this moment back and that I had never put a CD in the microwave.  But I don’t have a Delorean to take me back to the future.  I am so sorry.

Love,

Your favorite son Noah

P.S. I think it was Seth’s fault also.

My marathon

Mark may be running the Boston Marathon on Monday, but I have begun a marathon of my own.  It's called "getting the house and kids ready for me to be gone for 10 days."

Bathrooms to scrub, kitchen drawers to organize, lunches and meals to plan for, bedrooms to clean, sheets to wash, laundry to do, taxes to get mailed off, bookkeeping to finish, and a schedule of every place kids need to be and what they need to have with them needs to be written.  I suppose I should pack a suitcase as well.

We'll see how much I can get done in the next 36 hours.  Last time we went to Boston I was up until 2AM finishing things.  We were leaving at 4AM and so I decided that I would be more messed up with an hour of sleep than I would be if I just stayed awake until the taxi arrived.  Hopefully this time around I will get to sleep the night before we leave.

I can't wait to go back to my favorite Boston places, and then go to New York for 5 days after the marathon.  We are taking Aubrey and Joel with us this time, and I can't wait to show them my two favorite cities.  They have no interest in history, but I won't let that slow me down.  I still plan to make them cover the entire Freedom Trail...and parts of it twice.  Off the freedom trail, I can't wait to trek back to Dorchester Heights in south Boston and show the kids where Henry Knox and his troops surprised the British with 60 scavenged Ticonderoga cannon on the morning of March 17, 1776.  That's where the picture above was taken 2 years ago.

Let's hope I can keep my footing this year and avoid a repeat of my faint and concussion and the feet of Paul Revere.  My boys are still a bit traumatized from that little incident.

Too soon

From this moment almost 19 years ago, I have been dreading what is coming up in just a few weeks.  I remember holding Abram at the hospital on the night he was born and saying to him, "How will I ever let you leave to go on a mission?"

Well, it's coming right up, and I still don't know how I will do it.

Originally, he was leaving May 15th, but yesterday we got news that they need him to report on May 1st.  Because he is already fluent in Spanish, he will be in an advanced class and only stay for 2 weeks in Provo.  He will be leaving to Mexico on the day he originally was to report to the MTC.

I think I am OK with everything, because I know he will be having an awesome time from the moment he sets foot in Mexico.  He is ready to jump in and help and serve however he can.  He absolutely loves the Mexican people and culture already and he could not have been called to a more perfect mission.  I can't wait for those weekly emails to start coming through.

The thing that breaks my heart the most is thinking about Savanna and Zack telling him goodbye for 2 years.  We have sort of broken them in with Abram being away at school, but he has always been one Skype away if they wanted to talk to him.  I think about them missing Abram, and knowing how long 2 years is to a little kid, and then I break down.

But we can do hard things!

It was sad to pack up all of Abram's belongings before he left for college, but I am glad we have that done so I don't have to go through that again.  Now I am just filling 2 suitcases with his exciting missionary wardrobe.

I hurried and finished up his shopping yesterday, as we no longer will have 2 weeks to get things done when he comes home after the semester. We will only have a weekend with him before he leaves us for his 2-year, 2-man fiesta.   Mark is giving him a suit from his closet to wear at the MTC.  Mark and Abram are exactly the same height and weight. The missionaries in Xalapa never wear suits, only dress pants and short-sleeved shirts, so Abram didn't want a brand-new suit.  Thanks to Ross and Costco, he is outfitted with 9 pairs of Calvin Klein dress pants and 9 no-iron, short-sleeved white shirts for around $400.  Take that, Mr. Mac.

The part of his wardrobe I worried most about was shoes.   I just couldn't send him on a mission in some huge clunky shoes that may last 2 years but will kill his feet. Abram worked at Danner Boots last summer in the warehouse, and he knew about some awesome shoes that he wanted.  He also knows that Danner fits his foot perfectly and he can work all day in them, so we went with that.  He will have his pretty shoes for church, but he will be trapesing all around Xalapa in these bad boys.

His list said to send him with a raincoat, umbrella and rainboots, but everyone we know who has been there says a raincoat is worthless (which we know from the hot summer rain in Belize), and everyone from Oregon knows that umbrellas are for wimps, and that instead of rainboots which will never be worn, he should take a good pair of black leather waterproof boots instead.  Done.  Who needs a missionary mall?

Just a few more things on my list.  I've got to get Abram ready before we leave for Boston next Thursday!