MaeLyn's Musings

Hannah married Moroni Torres, a Brazilian, in Portugal in May of 2023. (For a more complete backstory on the two of them, read my posts  here  and  here .)  Shortly after their marriage they began the process of applying for a visa for Moroni so that they could come to the States. Unfortunately the wheels of bureaucracy for trying to come to our wonderful country legally grind slowly, even when someone is married to US citizen. It wasn't until March of 2025 that the prerequisite for his visa application was approved... meaning they could move on to submitting more documents and have an interview and eventually actually get the visa. Meanwhile, Hannah had about a year left of schooling to get her college degree and she realized that if she didn't return to school right away, some of her credits would expire and she would have to retake several of her classes... So, in April she returned to the States, not with her husband, but with her cat, so she could go back to BYU...

  My dad passed away a couple weeks ago. He was diagnosed with cancer a while ago. He took medicines and chemotherapy and he was in remission for a while, and then one day he went to the doctor for a checkup and learned that it was back, and throughout his body. He started taking the medicines again, but they made him feel tired and awful and weakened his immune system. In March, my dad got sick with the flu, which turned into pneumonia. The doctors at the hospital didn't know if he was going to survive, and so I and most of my siblings travelled to see him to give him a final hug. Meanwhile, my dad decided that if he was going to die, he wanted to do it in comfort, at home.  He stopped taking the cancer meds that were making him miserable and went home on hospice to sleep in his own bed, where people weren't poking at him and waking him up at all hours of the night. When I arrived and first saw him, he was sitting up in a rocking chair, looking tired, but alive. In the next c...

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. I spoke using just a brief outline, but here is the draft that outline was created from: In a 1993 Conference talk , Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin quoted a woman who described her feelings about a winter storm in Canada. She said, ““I love a winter storm. … When the wind starts to blow and the snow begins to fall, a feeling of excitement starts to build. … When I can’t see the trees at the neighbor’s farmyard, … I phone my husband! … He then picks up the children who are at school. … It is hard to describe the feelings I experience as our family is gathered home, and the storm rages outside. … And I love it! Everyone is safe; we are together. We have lots of food and water. The longer it lasts, the better. … We are shut off from the world. … We bask in the warmth of our home and in the warmth of our love. My heart is full, and I am at peace. Sometimes, I wish I could just stay like that forever, with my family gathered around me, pro...

When I was a little kid and I caught my parents kissing in the kitchen, I thought it was gross. When our family went for walks around the block and my parents held hands, I was a little embarrassed. And then one day, I met Steven. I'm not sure how it happened exactly. I think it was at a stake dance when we were fourteen or fifteen, and the slow music stopped and I took his hand as we walked back to join our friends. It became a tradition, holding hands. Twenty five years later, we still hold hands. With his left hand on the steering wheel, he reaches out to me with his right as we drive down the highway. We stroll through the park with fingers interlaced. Our kids may be embarrassed by it, but I still enjoy holding my sweetheart's hand. Happy 16th anniversary, Steven!

Yesterday I taught Relief Society again. This week the lesson was Chapter 4 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled Strengthening and Preserving the Family . Early on, as I studied the lesson and began thinking about how I wanted to teach it, I realized that this would be a difficult lesson to teach. There are few things so sensitive as talk about the family. To begin with, every family is different, and what might be considered ideal and perfect for me, would not be so ideal for someone else. There might be someone in the class who had come out of a bad divorce and was striving to build a happy life without an eternal spouse, and for whom talk about happy eternal marriage could be painful. I decided almost from the beginning that I didn't want to be doing a lot of talking during this lesson. I started out the lesson trying to give them a feel for what kind of family man President Smith was. I started by reading the words of Ethel, President Sm...

School has been in session for over a week now, and we are settling into the routines for the school year. Here is an update on each of us:  Peter just started third grade. He loves playing with LEGOs, and this morning, he showed me a town he had drawn, with all the LEGO characters inhabiting it. Peter's LEGO world Peter has had difficulty adjusting to an earlier wake-up time, and has frequently needed to take naps in the afternoons after school. He is enjoying being a cub scout, and he was awarded his Bobcat patch at our pack meeting on Tuesday. He found a leaf bug in his room yesterday, and caught it and put it in a jar. The leaf bug Joshua began 5th grade. He loves the erector set he received for his birthday, and spends a lot of time playing with it. He is also into Ninjas these days. This has meant practice fighting, as well as using his erector set pieces to build Ninja tools. Josh being a ninja this morning John is in 7th grade. His classes include ...

I was playing around with the idea of age progression, wondering what my children would like when they got older. In playing with the top three images, I discovered that they fit together quite nicely. There is definitely a family resemblance! Daughter Mother      Grandmother   Three generation composite

The picture says it all.

(I know Mothers Day was yesterday, but this post has been simmering for a few days and yesterday ended up being too busy for me to sit down and get out everything my heart wanted to say.) Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers of children young and old, all over the world. To the ones who read their children bedtime stories, and the ones who stay up late waiting for their teenagers to come home. To the ones who let their adult children move back in when they have no where else to go. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers who are grieving the loss of a child, due to miscarriage, genetic disorder, illness, accident, suicide, murder, war, or act of terrorism. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to those who are missing a child, due to disappearance, kidnapping, running away, loss of custody, prison, or just plain lack of communication. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers who are grieving the deat...

For lack of anything else to write about today, here is a generic model of what my days are like these days. 6:30am The alarm clock goes off. I roll over and attempt to catch a few more zzzzs, but usually get up within a few minutes, collect my clothes and head for the shower. Steven gets up, wakes up the kids and gets them moving. 7:00 Ideally, everyone is up and dressed. We gather for family prayer and scripture reading. 7:15 John puts the bowls on the table, Josh gets the spoons. Hannah pulls the cereal boxes down from the top pantry shelf and hands them to Peter, who brings them to the table. We gather at the table to eat. 7:30 Time to finish getting ready for school. Shoes are found, planners are signed, backpacks are double checked for homework. I try to get the dishwasher emptied and loaded with the breakfast dishes, and get a load of laundry into the washer. I remind the kids to make sure their dirty laundry is in their hampers. 7:45 Hannah leaves for her bus sto...

The day after Steven's graduation, we hopped into the car and set off on an adventure. As a family, we had never been east of Mt. Rushmore. Steven and I saw a couple east coast airports traveling to and from our missions, but we didn't get to actually see anything then, so we were very excited to be heading east. Our first destination was my sister Kristy's house, near Kansas City, Missouri. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins. I had my first experience with cicadas. I never realized before how loud they can be! John and Dallen Peter and Benjamin Hannah, John, Joshua, Peter, Katie, Matthew and Benjamin a cicada exoskeleton on a tree outside Kristy's home We went to church with Kristy and her family Sunday morning, and after lunch we set off to explore some Church history sites in the area. Our first stop was the Visitor's Center in Independence, MO . While here, we took a tour with a sister missionary, who told us the story o...

Steven left for Europe last Friday. Ever since he started looking into this MBA program, I think this international trip has been what he was most excited about. He has been looking forward to it for over a year, and now he is finally there! He has suffered some jet lag and difficulty sleeping, but he has enjoyed the tours of businesses and monasteries, banks and cities. He landed in Frankfurt, Germany, but has also seen Rüdesheim, Mannheim, and Heidelberg. He has seen the European Central Bank, the Deutsche Bank, a John Deere factory and a BASF plant the size of a city. Today I believe he is traveling to Strasbourg, France. He has the camera so I hope he is taking lots of pictures. From his emails, it sounds like he is having fun. Meanwhile, I am essentially a single parent. I've attempted to keep the routines as close to normal as possible, and besides acting up a little, the kids haven't talked much about his being gone. I miss Steven though. I miss the things he does to h...

I'm not sure exactly what world Joshua lives in, but he is definitely in a world of his own, marching to the beat of a drum only he can hear. I never know what he is going to be wearing next, or what creative game he will be playing. Whether he is wearing a lab coat, a monkey suit, a monk's robe or his "explorer" garb, I always know he is having fun. The following pictures were all taken in the last few months (since Christmas): Josh was thrilled with the lab coat and tools he got for Christmas. The better to play "mad scientist" with, I guess. Josh the Explorer warms his hands over a campfire. Josh the monkey has a chat with his friend Buzz Lightyear. Even when just dressing for school, Josh definitely has a certain style.

About a week ago, our family sat around the table for a family meal, and in the course of the conversation, I suggested that we plan a family activity for the following Saturday. The plan was met with enthusiasm by the children, and no objections from my sweet husband, so we proceeded to decide what we would do. Hannah suggested a scavenger hunt, and it wasn't long before we decided other details: the place would be an open space area near our home, we would bring cameras, we would divide into two groups, we had a list of about 25 things to look for and take pictures of. On Saturday morning, the kids did their chores with varying amounts of enthusiasm, and shortly after lunch we were ready to go. We collected the cameras, the lists, jackets, and a water bottle and set off on our family adventure. Steven, Hannah and Joshua took the old camera (the one where the view screen doesn't work) and one of the lists and set off. John, Peter and I lingered for a little while by the...