God is Good to the Johnsons

My brother has this synonymic phrase for "just joking." He says, "I'm just meme-ing you." Memes started happening about my freshman year of college. At least, the word "meme" started happening then. Humorous pictures paired with words are nothing new--political cartoons are ancient. Today I just wanted to share a few of my favorite memes (even the over-used ones), because while they're cheesy... let's be real... they're hilarious.

So we're in the process of searching for a house, like a house to own. Like a physical property that we'll be paying a mortgage for for way too long. It's a big step. Change of subject that will make sense later: I was never the type to use a dating app. I know lots of beautiful people who have met their soulmate through Tinder or Mutual or Bumble, so I'm not a hater. It just wasn't my style. But I feel like I'm getting the Tinder experience up close and personal right now with buying a home. You see, we find a cute place on Zillow, the price is right, we scroll through some gorgeous pics, and we swipe right (aka set up a showing with our awesome realtor). And then comes the date. The property showing. We stride up to the front door with high, high hopes. Then. Then there's that awful realization, room after room, backyard to barn, that what we're seeing now was awfully doctored up through some psychedelic filters online. The floors are linoleu...

First trip to Build-A-Bear Summer Theater Nosebleeds = Best seats in town Artistic Attempt Hoping My Husband & Children Will Feel This Way All My Life (This quote is by the Grandfather of my friend Laura) Garden Veggies Turned Breafast-for-Dinner An Attempt to Keep Him Warm While Camping Tidying the Church

Outside, outside is better than inside. Outside my thoughts don't clamor around, ricocheting off the walls until they muddle together in smog that blocks the ceiling. Outside, outside where the air is getting crisper like a preview for a weather show, "coming this fall!" (pun intended) . Outside, Outside is better than inside. Outside where labels float away because my ears can't hear the words my eyes see when my pockets feel the vibrations of them. Outside, outside where I walk and walk til my legs forget and my arms forget and my chest forgets the strain and calm kicks in where the air, the sidewalk, the looming peaks above and the magma deep beneath we're all here together the disconnect of devices dissipating and the nearness of nature renewing. Outside, outside is better than inside.

No te he visto hace cuatro años, Argentina. Decir que Te extraño, che... no son palabras adecuadas. Sos un regalo que Dios me dió por catorce meses. Todos mis hermanos, quienes conocí mientras viví allí, Que sepan que tocaron mi alma y jamás les olvidaré. Y no importa cuantos años pasan, siempre seré una hija de Dios, una misionera, una discípula de Cristo. Y siempre soy argentina de corazón.

My husband is a chill guy. I am less than chill at times (many . . . times) and my mind races a million miles a minute about my feelings and the potential feelings of others and what if he thought this and what if I offended with that... it's exhausting. But often the times I should have picked up on saying something that truly offended someone, I don't, and I move on my merry way, and hit someone with hurt, which is a terrible predicament for them and for me. And I wish everyone had a stoplight above their brains that turned red when something I said bugged and green when the conversation was going well and yellow when they were getting bored. I digress. So sometimes, after I say something that could have potentially been taken as a cutting remark to my husband, I'll say, "Are you mad?" And the thing is, he's the furthest from mad (because he's so chill). He's moved on from whatever we were talking about a long time ago. Recently, when ...

If you and I could both decide On just one moment to confide Share our hearts, deny our pride Would our two worlds at last collide? Why our time must we bide? While columnists our lives deride When really if I heard your side Our stories, quite, would coincide.

Have you ever been there when your friend gets a call, but you weren't meant to be next to them when they answered? When the news on the other line wets their eyes droops their shoulders turns your light conversation about colors and creativity (from before the ring, the buzz) into a mockery of real life. The real life with it's  shades of heartbreak from the update that hits them like a jump-shot poorly thrown knocking the wind out of 'em them, the guard just there defending their game. But life's not a game, and it isn't fair, and where are the refs anyway? Why is it that foul after foul hits upside the head when they've played fair all this time this round and all those before it? I remember, I remember when she got that call Her left hand pressed tight against her lips and her right clutching the receiver, her slender fingers like ice bones now tight, tight, holding on. Her hands, just after they were just barely, just before, jus...

I used to pride myself on being an excellent speller. I was that annoying kid in elementary school who got 100% on nearly every spelling test without studying too hard. But bilingualism has sure shaken me up, guys. My serious study of the Spanish language began five years ago, and I love Spanish because just about everything is phonetic. My biggest struggles come when I mix up "b" and "v," and occasionally I flub up with "j" and "g," but for the most part my spelling is spot on, even when I've never seen the word written down. But then comes English again. And phonetics gets the better of me every time. Today I accidentally spelled "sour" as "sower" in a text. I stared at the word "yellow" for a solid thirty seconds last school year and was totally dumbfounded by that w on the end--it's totally unnecessary! And that uncomfortable moment when I've reverted to spelling "pterodactyl" without t...

When I was a wee little human bean, my mom would often take me, my little brothers, and my cousin Kylie to get bean burritos from the Taco Bell. We wouldn't eat them right away, though.  We'd cruise over to the local park, take our bell-clad brown paper bags up to the "rocketship" and eat the beany-tortilla-cheesiness together. After which, we'd spend an hour or two playing on the grounds, pretending the woodchips were lava and that one of us was a monster trying to trap the rest. That was a long, long time ago. The only times I've eaten Taco Bell since those little-kid years was a Chalupa Supreme once in the university food court when I was a freshman, and then while filming a zombie movie with my brothers. I think some snooty judgement demon subtly convinced me it was gross or childish. But yesterday, man. Something got into me. I don't know where the nostalgia descended from, but at 8:15 at night I got this mad craving for taco-burrito-ness. The...

I really, really, really enjoy a select few movies that I willingly watch over and over again. Pride and Prejudice is one of them. You see, Elizabeth's defense of her family, her sense of self respect, her ability to admit that she was wrong and to appreciate Darcy despite all his quirks, and quizzical brow-ness... it's marvelous. My husband doesn't share the sentiment, could you tell? ... and that's okay. There's rare a chick flick I enjoy near as much as I enjoy Pride and Prejudice or A Walk To Remember , and I wanted to explain why. You see, there's more than just a few problems with (many, not all) chick flicks:  (and if you have a chick flick that escapes many of these pitfalls then please oh please leave it's title in the comment section!) The heroine (or suitor) is less than honorable. I have a hard time rooting for a girl to get a gentleman when she's spending her time being scandalously loose with other men ( #thenotebook) . An...

My first exposure to the film Nacho Libre  was late at night while sitting in the back seat of a mini van at age sixteen. I was surrounded by the Bell family from my neighborhood back home, my dear friend McKenna was there too. We had just left the annual Stadium of Fire! fourth of July celebration where we'd fan-girled over Miley Cyrus (you know, back in her good-old Hannah Montana days). They had generously invited me to come with them, and I had loved the outdoor seats on the grass where the music played right in front of us and the gigantic fireworks boomed overhead . . . But at present it was nearly midnight, and we were stuck in a parking lot for hours while the thousands of other guests darted in their own cars for the exits . . . And on repeat, on their little mini-van TV screen, played the film Nacho Libre . I'm pretty sure we watched it at least two times in a row that night, perhaps more. Perhaps I was sleep-angry. Perhaps it was the cramped backseat. Perhaps it wa...

I often take pictures of things I wonder about ...or that surprise me ... or that just plum crack me up. For example, this truck in Nampa, Idaho. Can you tell what's just a little bit off about it? (besides the red gas-cap cover of course. Cuz that's odd, and awesome, but it's not what I'm talking about.). ANSWER: Take a look at that little pink think protruding out of the truckbed. Who keeps a Beanie Boo around in their truckbed? What's the story there? Or like, how long has the candy in this machine been there in the old-town laundromat it resided in? Granted, this pic was taken in 2015, but... if the candy then was as old as the 90's stock photos they used to advertise it, well, my brother and I will pass on that one. This guy. Mysteriously left on our porch circa Fall 2015. Need I explain? Insert your own question about him here _____________. Sometimes the questions and crack-ups come when I just can't remembe...

(This post is one of thinking too deeply, too deep into the night). Since it's tomorrow already and I have this bad habit of posting when it's tomorrow, and not today, I'll get in the habit of writing a post on what some people call yesterday but I'm calling it tomorrow but it's not tomorrow, not really (says the clock)... it's the same day as the last one, the last post, I mean. Does that make sense? Well if it doesn't, then maybe you are one of those that thinks about how the people in China are ahead and how if you went to visit them, you'd lose your Saturday altogether, just trying to catch up. You'd relive your Friday twice, if you come home on a Friday. But if you stay there, stay in China, that's a day you'll never have, a calendar mark you'll never cross, a break in your habit of daily journals, a number forgot. Maybe you're one of those, one of those that lands on a planet and leaves someone in the space...

I remember nights when one a.m. was a standard time to go to bed, and seven a.m. was a standard time to wake up Because the night was always young young enough to also be morning. Yet how did it come to be, that nights when I'm awake this long I feel as though I'm the only one in the world awake (except for the small one, who likes to take his first breakfasts in the wee hours [at times]). I remember nights when seven-thirty p.m. was bedtime, and six-thirty a.m. was when I always, always, naturally woke. Nights when bedtime came too soon. Yet how did it come to be, that these nights when seven-thirty was so long ago and bedtime comes so late?

Charlie, Bradley, Kevin and I--with special permission, visited the Jerusalem set. Well, we didn't exactly walk where Jesus walked. But I felt Him there, as the pictures from all the Bible Videos startled my vision like a daytime dream, filling the gaps of stone pathways with faces from the past. And as neat as it was to wander a set that mirrors Jerusalem, and to imagine what the real thing looks like, where Jesus actually taught and healed during his mortal ministry-- He's here with me at home, too. I know he lives, I know His resurrection is real, I know His atonement enables me to overcome death and hell (because He overcame them!), I have witnessed miracles He performs in my life and in others', and I know He walks with me in so many ways (which I only partially know, and someday will more fully understand). This is a video of one of Christ's miracles, filmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat...

"And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit: and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I: be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come, And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" -St. Matthew 14:25-31 How many times have you heard Peter criticized in Sunday School for having a lack of faith? I've heard it countless times. I'm pretty sure I've done it myself. But three years ago I attended an "...

He called himself a heart with ears, that man, over the pulpit. He meant you've got to listen, but not just listen... not just to give advice or just to seem nice but to replace earbuds with understanding and pair cochleas with caring.

I was talking with a woman I admire today about something she learned at a conference she attended last weekend. She was advised to think of what she appreciates about her body and to write it down. I don't think I've ever done that before. In recent months I've become aware that the trite phrase "comparison is the thief of joy" applies to far more thieveries than we'd cared to admit, leaving us far poorer in the confidence department than we like to acknowledge. There's comparing our body image to that of an admired friend, a gorgeous family member, a glam movie star; subsequently leaving us dissatisfied and feeling overwhelmingly ugly. There's then the flip comparison of believing some part of us is far more appealing than another's, leading us down a sinful snickering path of vain self-absorption and false self-certainty. And then, most covert, there's that devil that assures us that our past selves of yesteryear were prime, lush, ...

After you’ve been away There’s nothing that can bring you home fast enough. Not a horse Not a stage coach Not a locomotive Not a Ferrari Not a jet plane Not a rocket. None of them fast enough When it’s been too long And I belong Here.

Pretty sure I haven’t touched a sewing machine in 13 years, since I had to pick out the stitches in most of my projects in my middle school “Clothing 1” class. I still use the horseshoe pillowcase I made, and my mom was kind enough to keep my poorly quilted Americana pillow. It wasn’t the greatest experience, with no fault to my teacher. I was sloppy and hurried and my stitches and I repelled like magnets held at the wrong ends. But today, with the coaxing of my dear friend, her grandmother, grandfather, and aunt—I found myself between threads and needles once again. And you know something? It felt real, real good to be handling fabric again. The art of sewing, before today, was just a hastily introduced acquaintance from my past. But now, we’ll, I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

So today I accidentally pulled Charlie out of the shopping cart before he was ready, and he clung to the honeycomb holes in the sides... he scraped his finger and started to whimper and of course I felt awful, like I should earn the worst mother of the month award as his precious little finger started to bleed a wee bit.  It’s never fun when your baby is hurt. So I hurried him home, and got a little Neosporin spread in a bandaid and wrapped it tight around the injury. But then I started to freak out further as he started to suck on his fingers, because what if neosporin is toxic? So I frantically read the package, and next thing I know when I turn around Charlie is grinning and the bandaid is nowhere to be seen, I check the floor and in between his other fingers and toes and in his mouth... no bandaid. Welp, he whimpers  some more so I try to get him something to eat. A solid 15 minutes later, after he’s downed most of the bottle, a little tan triangle emerges from under his t...

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got til it's gone?" -Joni Mitchell I've been thinking about how the little things are overlooked until they're obstructed, interrupted, or taken away. Isn't it funny how much you appreciate breathing normally after you have a cold? When you don't have to trick yourself into falling asleep with your mouth open? Today I realized how awesome clean air is when I went outside for a walk and was met with a ghastly aroma of distant wildfire, and a moment later down the street the smell of burnt toast from a bachelor pad's window. The crispy vaporous smells mingled. They were distinct, but equally void of refreshment. The walk didn't last long. It was just too gross out there. I can't believe I used to complain about doing the dishes when I lived at home with mom and dad in a house with an excellent dishwasher. I've been doing dishes by hand in my own apartment for 8 years now...

FAIRGROUNDS #MOCHI CURIOSITY PRECARIOUS DELIGHT DEVOURING DISGUSTED BUDDIES SATURDAY REDECORATED ROADTRIPPIN'

Hermanito, Today you left on your mission. You're giving two years to God because you love Him and you want to help His children. AND BECAUSE YOU'RE INCREDIBLY BRAVE. As we piled up with you by the baggage drop off in the airport, Mom, Dad, Tyler, Austin, Corey, Charlie and I--I couldn't help but remember how exciting, how terrifying, how surreal, how butterfly-filled everything felt for me when I left for Argentina for my own mission five years ago. I remember how I hugged you that morning, before the MTC, how I hugged you and all the boys, and then Mom and Dad last of all. I was worried, but I knew you'd all be OK because you'd have each other to look after. I knew I'd be okay because I trusted God and I had total confidence He'd take care of me. What a journey that was! And at times, how I miss it... how I rejoice in it... How I thank God for each and every day he gave me those 18 months. And here I am on the other end, watching you walk into the ...

One thing I for sure missed while I was pregnant was the adventurous stuff. Horseback riding & rollercoasters being the primary adrenaline cravings I got all the time but couldn't satisfy. Just a little ago, I got a chance to eat up the joy of ROLLERCOASTERING. Now, I know that theme parks and county fairs and the like are cliché and perhaps overrated. But watching the world fly by while you're midair, zooming upside down, with splats of recycled ride water dotting your face from the waterfall you saw for only a blink of a second... oh my goodness isn't it lovely? I think so. (p.s. Shoutout to my mother-in-law who took care of Charlie so that we could go :) )

In the past two weeks I have accidentally murdered 3 snails. The crunch under my shoe happened in three separate locations while I was minding my business getting things done, leaving me with a gummed up under-sole and a sinking feeling in my stomach. They're nasty creatures, of course.... But they're creatures... helpless invertebrates victimized by the merciless weight of my step. And for some reason I still feel really bad about it.

midnight came fast tonight as I cradled you, little one, for the last half our of the day. It feels like new years, each time I get to hold you and ring in the new day as the hours chase one another off into a fresh chapter, a chapter where your fears are calmed your cries wander off and soft, comforted breathing replace them. I pray I can trust God this next day to bring me strength, to whip my fears with the same fierce trust you have in me to do the same for you each day.

Guys. I have them. My first set of wrinkles. There's these crinkles under my eyes and creases at the edges of my smile that didn't used to be there, and when I bend my wrist there's these little lines--lines like the marks in the desert soil when it's been too long between rainfall. I'm 26 years old, but I swear I feel the exact same as I did four years ago when there wasn't a line in sight... Now lots of you are probably laughing because you're older than me, or because I'm being a little melodramatic (and I know that I am). But, well, still! It be crazy that I'm changing. Kevin and I were looking at pictures the other day, and we came across one from our dating days. He looked like he was just a little boy, and I wondered how that could possibly be. We've known each other less than four years and been married for three of those, yet here we are... older... wrinklier. This wheel of life, this motion of growth and constant change (or a ...

That little one of mine, he screeches now when I change his clothes. It's a frustrating thing for him, I suppose, to have somebody else decide when it's time to change clothes, and what you'll be wearing with what... he screeches when we drive for too long and he screeches when I feed him vegetables and fruits and he screeches when I don't understand what he wants (it wasn't a nap... it wasn't a diaper change... it wasn't food... it wasn't a toy... what could it be?!?!?!). I wish I knew how to speak screech. I was thinking about Heavenly Father today, and how he sends us here to Earth. I was thinking about all the fair share of screeching I've done in my life when something was happening that I didn't quite understand, something I didn't want, something that didn't fit my agenda. You know, kiddo, I'm changing your clothes because I love you (and being in the same outfit more than half a day... dude you'd smell so rank!). I fee...

I clean the house Nooks and crannies and corners Fixing all the mess I find old knick-knacks And sometimes I throw them out Today though, I can't Memories are strong Hopes for the future are too Somehow tied to these

It's funny how when I was younger, I had ambition to wake up early each year to watch the sun rise over the lake on our annual camping trip. But the chrysalis of comfort inside my cozy sleeping bag was always more inviting than the prospect of the biting cold that accompanied the slow-changing sky lights...so I never did it. This year, I honestly had forgotten that old ambition. The early hour came with the cooing of my little one, whose alarm clock doesn't change for vacation. So I abandoned the chrysalis without a thought, changed our clothes, wandered out into the brisk mountain morning air, and took the little one with me for a jaunt around the lake. We wandered through the gray-blue hue of the morning, observing hopping flopping fish and eager fishermen (patiently awaiting them). As the beams started dazzle down through the pines and glance off the water, blinding us, I remember my youthful ambition. I smile to myself. Too many voices told me last year that becoming ...

where's home? well sometimes it looks like a duplex built in the 40's with a fledgling garden in the backyard and other times it looks like a red-brick house on the top of a hill in a windy city a veces mi hogar es  mate cups and capybaras roaming the streets and Axel's voice booming through windows covered with an off-hinge sheet curtain home's a smattering of buildings filled with scholars and navy shirts and yet still other times it's the branches of a tree where I spent my 13th summer reading. but this week, home is fire roasts, marshmallow toasts, and hush humming voices under a screen of stars next to a chill mountain lake with people that have always known me.

sometimes i don't know how amazing he is til i'm without him for an evening because of adulting (he has to go to work. and i'm grateful he has work, and that he works...) but tonight i'm without him under a blanket of stars tucking little boy into a snow suit (so he doesn't get too cold at night). and I realize how much warmer this moment would be if he were here too.