welcome to smashville

someday when i am old and my knowledge of parenting is infinite, i'd like to write a travel pamphlet about places that are good to take your special kids. our family can't go just anywhere. we try and push our boundaries all the time and every experience is exposure therapy, but some things simply aren't in our wheelhouse and that's okay. traveling with kids with autism is going to carry with it a range of altered expectations but if i've learned anything about anything, proper expectations and realistic adjustments are key to a happy life. occasionally there are even bursts of vacation glory.

for thanksgiving we surprised the kids with a short trip to chattanooga and nashville. because of autism, we didn't tell them until wednesday morning at 7am as we were hauling suitcases down the stairs. with autism there is often a lot of preparation for new experiences, but since we are now old hands at gauging proper autism practices, we decided to forego telling them beforehand so that i didn't have to hear any complaining or suffer through unnecessary anxieties from our special people. sometimes a bad day of reaction is preferred to several days of anxiety. this doesn't work for everyone every time, but it's how we chose to navigate this particular experience. naturally and not surprisingly, reagan was not thrilled about the trip and athena blythe was over the moon. please follow along for perfect captures of reagan's emotions through iphone photography.

we stopped at rock city and used the bathroom but didn't actually see rock city because it cost an arm and a leg and i wanted to save our time and money for bigger things. we kinda saw the lookout, on lookout mountain, where you can see 7 states. i'm content with kinda on that one. when thomas and i come alone, we will explore the battle of chattanooga and pay the $20 a pop for the lookout. 



the really big deal for me was being able to see ruby falls. it was amazing. a testimony to a divine creator. it was only discovered in 1928, because a guy decided to crawl on his stomach in a tiny crevice in a cave for 7 hours. we took the elevator down. 


not everyone was a fan. but he kept it to a minimum until the tour guide asked at the end, "who enjoyed this tour?"
"NOT ME!" said reagan.





from the tower at ruby falls

After chattanooga, we hopped in the car and drove to nashville. we ate burger king in the car, which i think is a good autism friendly trick, offer very familiar food in a trying or unfamiliar environment. we made it to nashville just in time to catch the nashville predators hockey game. it was absolutely sensory overload, for me especially because i was so worried about our specials after an already eventful day, but it went really well. sometimes reagan is able to tune out an excess level of noise if we're lucky. athena blythe happily talked to a little girl seated next to her and loudly asked why people we throwing their garbage on the ground instead of using the very easily accessible garbage cans located throughout the arena. i love that about her. for real, are you too prideful to help out the cleaning staff? i was surprised to learn that some hockey teams have cheerleaders. i just didn't think that was a thing, but it is. 

after a thrilling night sleeping all in the same hotel room, short one pullout bed because it was thanksgiving, we went and saw frozen 2. the best thing i can say about it was the was the kind of theater that serves actual restaurant quality food and i did enjoy my nachos. it appears they're just letting anybody write screenplays and music these days. there's hope for my music career yet. 

we were able to have thanksgiving dinner with thomas's BYU friend, heather, and her family. she is now a pediatric neurologist(which is right up my alley in case you didn't read the parts about having 2 kids with autism) and she had also invited one of her friends who is a plastic surgeon to join us so i was able to ask medical questions to my heart's desire. i learned a lot about botox injections being used to help celebral palsy patients deal with muscle stiffness and i saw a SLEW of post-breast cancer reconstruction photos using abdominal body fat and skin. modern medicine is incredible and once again, there is a divine creator in charge of all this. 

heather's husband is a firefighter so he took us down to the station and we were able to ask all the question and climb all the ladders. reagan thought this was way better than ruby falls. 

their were also live chickens in a coop, plus two cats and a dog so there was really something for everyone at this thanksgiving. 

fun fact, in the 1970s they started making fire trucks yellow so that they would be more easily identifiable in the dark but it did not catch on with the public so they went back to red. i said this once to someone and they acted like i made the whole thing up so this trip to the fire station was especially vindicating for me. 

another fun fact, scott stapp from creed and THE ALAN JACKSON live in this fire rescue district. 

friday was filled with the country music hall of fame, much to the delight of thomas and myself and much to the chagrin to everyone else, especially to the other patrons who saw us coming. 

if you say you don't love country, you're not giving the right kind of country music a try. i have a visceral reaction with someone calls "florida/georgia line" country music. NO. that's bro country. give chris stapleton a shot. the high women! the highway men! do you want to cry? try johnny cash's "hurt". do not put THE DOLLY PARTON in the same company as luke bryan. sorry luke, i've heard you're a nice guy but your music sounds like you need to blow your nose and your lyrics are about as inspired as the directions to make instant ramen.

athena blythe with kacey musgraves met gala outfit:

thomas with his favorite, eric church. 

reagan finally smiled with he saw taylor swift, and that's all i have to say about that.

outside the country music hall of fame:

outside the predators arena and an accurate name for our trip:

 Want to see something really cool ruined with a few eye rolls and licks on the display glass? bring your kids. sometimes you muscle through activities your kids don't want to be at like any old family and realize it's not autism, it's having kids. 

and reagan is DONE:

europe is probably never going to be in our cards, but i'm not completely writing that out of the possibilities. maybe we can coordinate it with a firetruck ride outside of the sistine chapel. 

we had dollywood planned for saturday, but we were all harboring burgeoning illnesses and it was going to rain all day in pigeon forge so we tabled that trip until next year. that's my last bit of autism travel advice for today. acceptance is key. you have to play the cards you're dealt and not wish for different cards all day. flexibility is a two way street. this is who my family is. some exposure therapy and practice and social stories aren't always going to work. sometimes you just go home. thomas and i need to be as flexible as we're expecting the kids to be and canceling things can be a gift. we needed to get home not completely exhausted and sick and by skipping dollywood, we were able to have a good fast sunday.

the flu didn't hit until sunday night.
the. end.

personal progress gets personal

 long story longer, six months ago i was called at the personal progress leader for our ward. a few months after that i was called as the laurels(16-18 year old girls) advisor and just a few weeks ago i was called as young women's(all girls 11-18) president in our church congregation. from the minute i was called as personal progress leader, i experienced an overwhelming level of spiritual promptings that continued to build and grow as i worked hard and transition from calling to calling. this past week was our young women in excellence program. since everyone in the previous presidency was released the week before, i was feeling incredible pressure to put together this program with my new presidency. thankfully, some sisters who are incredibly talented at event planning stepped in to help as we scrapped 90% of the previous plans and went super simple with the new event direction. my new presidency accomplished incredible things and i'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out. about 10 years ago i went to a relief society conference where the theme was "make is lovely, make it simple" and that has been my mantra ever since. 

no one likes when a meeting goes over time and so i promised everyone that it would be only and hour. we started at 7:06 because of terrible evening traffic and we ended at 7:56. no one high fived me but i believe that many people wanted to. aside from herschel pulling the fire alarm while we were setting up and one cake getting dropped on the floor by a bishopric member, everything went off without a hitch. everything was cleaned up at we were all out of there by 8:30. 

i was one of the speakers and this is my talk:

Oftentimes our society confuses achievement for worth. We are a society of recognition and awards ceremonies. That’s part of why we are here tonight. We’re all in various stages of progress and achievement. Whether you received a ribbon or medallion tonight or if you aren’t participating in personal progress is irrelevant to your worth and actual progress in life. Larry Shaw of the Grayson ward once said in a meeting that, “women have worth upon arrival”. I wrote it down and I try and remind myself of that often. My dad would always call football a game of inches, meaning that the difference between success was often the smallest thing you could do to win the game. That is true for our lives. We set large goals but the best way to achieve them to make sure you are moving forward every day, even if it’s only a few inches. When we are continually turning to Christ, we are able to make that daily progress.

All that being said, I want to share with you an experience I had last week that is based on our theme for the evening, turning to Christ. One morning last week at the gym, as I was finishing up my workout, a man that I have seen almost every morning for several years, but had never spoken to before approached me. He asked me why I was doing certain lifts a particular way and before I could even answer, he told me I was doing it all wrong and he pointed out everything I was weak at and that I didn’t know what I was doing. He then proceeded to tell me that everything I did there wasn’t making a difference and that I should be doing other exercises if I wanted to be “doing it right”. Because he was an expert and this is what “he did all the time”. As I attempted again to politely explain my methodology which is actually based on research and experience, he continued to cut me off and berate me on the gym floor. This is where I am going to tell you some things that I do every day at the gym. I listen to a conference talk and I pray that I will be kind and patient with everyone I interact with that morning because being kind and patient at the gym can be hard for me. Ironically, the talk that I listened to was “And nothing shall offend them” by Elder Bednar. At this point in my workout I was trying to not be offended by some of the vile language I hear on a regular basis there and I was extra patient as I talked to another gym patron who seems very lonely and lacks a lot of social awareness. I felt like I was doing all the right things! I don’t know why this man singled me out, but perhaps he thought I was weak or would appreciate his rude comments. I was very surprised that I was being subjected to this barrage of insults and my mind was quickly loading up all my best comebacks to put this man in his place. Imagine a giant sling shot being pulled back very tightly. Then, I had the Spirit come to my heart and tell me to be polite and simply walk away. It was really hard to do because I am good at saying mean things but I walked to my car. As soon as I got to my car, I burst into tears and cried all the way home. I got home and I cried to Thomas and he said all the right things and reassured me that I do know what I’m doing at the gym and that my studying  and practice was paying off. Then he said the words that every girl wants to hear, “I’m going to go beat that guy up right now!” And I said, “No, let’s not be like that. You hold him down and I’ll beat him up!” Then we laughed and I felt better and I considered everything over with. It was an upsetting experience but I had done what I set out to do. I was not be offended and I was kind.

However, later on that day though, the cracks started to show. I started feeling really down on myself. I consider myself to be someone who doesn’t really care too much about other people’s opinions but unkind words can still affect me. What started out as a really uncomfortable experience bloomed into negative thoughts about myself which spread to questioning whether I should just quit going to the gym altogether because I’m clearly terrible at it and my very presence was bothering people. Of course it spiraled into what a terrible parent I am, how bad I am at keeping my house clean, nobody actually likes me and various other forms of negative self-talk. It all snowballed into, “I’m not worth it!” Because I struggle with anxiety and depression, I call this type of hurtful thinking, the darkness. And when the darkness shows up, it can envelope me quickly and tightly. If you study pathology, you know that an opportunistic infection is an illness that can kill you when you’re already sick with something else. Satan is an opportunistic infection. He saw my struggle and took the opportunity to make it so much worse.

Now girls, if this happens to you often, you should definitely talk to someone and get help. There are many people here tonight who would love to help you with that. But also, you need to know that when the darkness starts to envelop you, you can turn, like a sunflower, to the Savior. Jesus Christ is the light in ANY darkness and all we need to do is seek Him out.

So before I went to bed that night, I knelt in prayer and poured out my heart to Him, that He would help me overcome this darkness that I was feeling. That I would wake up and feel like myself, the person who loves the gym and is doing her best to be a good parent and if my house is messy it actually doesn’t matter because a messy house is inevitable with creative, high-spirited children and my infinite and inherent worth is NOT BASED on anything temporal! No award of achievement can change my worth! And you know what! I did! I woke up on time, I walked in the gym like I owned the place and the Savior placed very kind people in my path. And that old, lonely man who talked my ear off the day before because I was practicing kindness told me what I great job I was doing. 

my testimony is that we can always turn to Christ and that our quest for personal progress doesn't end here but that we will always be choosing to progress inch by inch, day by day. i say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.