The Blessing

Last Sunday, a day fittingly matched with blue skies, white clouds, and a shining sun, Valencia was blessed at the local LDS chapel.  Encircled by the priesthood, and witnessed by many friends and loved ones (and many more of you who were there in spirit), she was given a name and a blessing.  While I won't go into too much detail about the blessing, I can tell you that it focused on our daughter's name.  The naming and blessing were not compartmentalized, as they often are.  Instead, they were intentionally intertwined, given the natural harmony between the two.

Valencia comes from the latin word "valentia", which means power.  It shares the same root as the word "valor" and "valiant", all tying into the theme of strength, bravery, and courage.  Valencia was blessed to possess these traits throughout her life.

Soleil is the French word for sun.  Besides sounding pretty and having a complimentary rhythm to the first name, Soleil is ripe with symbolism, from light to warmth to the Savior of the world.  Christ said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matt 5:16).  Valencia Soleil was blessed to be a light unto the world.

Olsen is the Danish version of the name Olson, which literally means "son of Ole." Ole is the Danish version of the name Olaf, which is derived from the Old Norse name meaning "ancestor's decedent." Our daughter's name carries with it a legacy of many brave and notable relatives and ancestors that have come before her: farmers and pioneers, temple presidents and railroad workers, and yes, a lawyer or two.  Though physically she was surrounded by only a few of them on that day, Valencia Soleil Olsen was blessed with an innumerable sum of loving family members to whom she can rely upon for love and encouragement throughout eternity.

It was a beautiful day.  Thank you to all of you who came to the service, especially those of you who traveled from out of town.  And an extra big shout-out to my mother.  I can't express how happy we were to have Grandma Cozy in town for the event.  She was such a blessing to us throughout her stay, and I know she cherished every moment she had with her newest granddaughter, our Sunshine Angel.

A beautiful spread, prepared by Norma and Celeste

Valencia with Uncle Dolph aka "The Godfather"

Maddie and Vali

Winding down after a long day of church and friends.

Cozy, Jack, Vali, and Les

O Valencia!

Some things are worth the wait.

Our little girl was born over the weekend, almost a full week after her due date.  Her name is Valencia Soleil Olsen (pronounced so-LAY), and she was born on August 15th at 1:10 in the afternoon.  She is, as her name suggests, our Sunshine Angel.

The night before it happened, Celeste could sense she was on the brink.  She warned me to get a good night's rest and to save all the energy I could.  For the first time all week, we fell asleep together.

We also woke up together.  It was about 5:30 in the morning, and while I was waking up to go to work, Celeste was waking up with contractions.  Real contractions.  They were coming in consistent waves like the ebb and flow of the ocean's tide.  They were still mild enough that I was able to go to work for an hour to tie up some loose ends, but by the time I got back home around 8:30, she was really starting to feel it.  She lay in our recliner, breathing deeply and tracking her contractions with an app.  Her mother was in the bathroom getting ready to leave.  Merlin was a hot mess.  He could tell something was going on with Celeste, so he made himself useful by practically sitting on top of her and looking deeply at her with wanting eyes.

We took Merlin to a friend's house (Thanks, Dave & Em!) and made haste.  I moved quickly throughout the house, ensuring that we weren't leaving any essentials behind.  Cindy did the same.  Celeste remained in the chair, her contractions now accompanied by soft moans, until we put her in the car and headed to the hospital.

By the time we arrived at Duke Regional Hospital in Durham, NC, Celeste had completely retreated into a mental state of feminine solitude.  It was a strange thing to witness this woman go totally inside herself.  Celeste has always reached out to me when in pain, but in that moment she was withdrawn from the world around her and hunkered into her world of breathing, contracting, and the miracle of childbirth.  I was not hurt by this retreat.  I was prepared for it.  As a result, Cindy and I found any way possible to make her laboring more comfortable.  Fetching water, laying cool towels on her neck and forehead.

Celeste's progressed at an almost inexplicable pace.  At her first examination, she was already dilated to 8 centimeters.  After only 7 hours of labor, she was ready to push.  (I admit I didn't know what any of that meant until recently.  Childless people out there will just have to take my word for it.  She was cruising.)

For the sake of everyone reading, I am going to edit the final hour of the story for content, but I do think it important to share two facts about that time: first, Celeste showed more grit and strength than any woman I have ever seen.  She was relentless and fearless and powerful.  And it wasn't just in that last hour.  And it wasn't just during labor.  Truth be told, it wasn't just during her nine month pregnancy.  Celeste is strong by nature, and she lives it everyday.  She wouldn't take a wheel chair to the delivery room.  She wouldn't take an epidural or an IV.  Like a stalwart pioneer, she braved the pain and tribulation of labor with a fierce delicacy.  If her life is her crown, then that final hour of labor, and the subsequent miracle named Valencia that came at the end of it, was her crown jewel.

The other thing that happened during that last hour was that right before the heavy pushing began, our midwife assigned Cindy to hold Celeste's right leg and foot, and assigned me to hold her left leg and foot.  It wasn't a question.  It was a statement of fact.  I was to be in the middle of the action.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a well-documented queasiness for blood, surgery, and broken things.  Prior to the pregnancy, Celeste and I had had serious discussions about whether or not I could even handle being in the delivery room.  Eventually, I came around and agreed to be present, near Celeste's head, showering her with encouragement from a safe distance from the birth canal.  But it was not meant to be.  I was given an assignment, and I was in no position to refuse.  Sparing you the messy details, I will say that I was present and in the line of fire for the entire delivery, and never once did I feel nauseous or uneasy.  Not even once.  Not even a little bit.  All I could think about was my baby girl and my beloved wife.  Something inside me changed in that delivery room, if only temporarily, to be there for the women in my life.

At approximately 1:10 p.m. Valencia (aka "Vali") came into our lives.  She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and stretched 21 inches long.  She is healthy strong, and for the most part very cooperative.  Since the moment she came into the world, we can hardly stop snapping pictures of her.  Can you blame us?

Now we are in recovery.  We came home from the hospital Sunday and have been trying to ease our daughter into this new world.  For the last three days, we have been overwhelmed with phone calls, text messages, and the like from family and friends across the country.   As we have tried to recover from this dramatic event, we have felt the presence of their prayers, and give thanks daily for the love of such a wonderful supporting cast.  Mom is strong and recovering quickly.  Baby is pleasant and adjusting to her new world with relative grace.  Dad is sitting here on his computer, typing the family's story, and trying to wrap his head around how blessed they all are.

MIA: Baby Girl Olsen

Today is Baby Girl's big day!!!  Now, if only she were here to see it.

Yes, today officially marks 40 weeks of pregnancy.  In mid-November, through the miracle of science, technology, and medicinal innovations, Celeste and I went through the IUI procedure for the fourth time.  It came at the end of a grueling 3 and a half year stretch of trying to conceive.  You know what they say: fourth time’s a charm.  Well it was for us, anyway.

We did a pregnancy test on the weekend of Thanksgiving, almost as a formality.  I’m ashamed to say it, but we had kind of given up at that point.  I was already deep into my research on adoption, and had come to terms with that being our only reasonable path to parenthood.  Then, thanks to a white stick that had a digital reader on one end and a urine sample on the other, our worlds changed in an instant.  Celeste was pregnant.

I am not quite on pins and needles, but I have felt a measure of anxiety as I’ve gone throughout the day.  The fact that I’ve done nothing today that wasn’t in the “baby preparation” category has probably only made it more pronounced.  I assembled a newly-arrived bookshelf/toy box.  I assembled a baby swingy thing.  I painted a “V” and hung it on the wall.  I cleaned the car.  I vacuumed the house.  Then, when I realized that vacuuming doesn’t do much to suck up Merlin’s hair, I hand-scraped our carpets until the majority of his dog hair was in a trashcan (what a joy it is to gather balls of dog hair the size of tumbleweed).

And now, with all of our pressing “to do” list items crossed off, we’re just sitting and enjoying a quiet evening together.  My mother-in-law Cindy, who flew in a couple of days ago, is reading on her tablet.  Celeste is in the other room talking to a friend from Colorado.  I am in the living room, typing away my thoughts while Merlin stares at me with wanting eyes.  It’s getting late, and it seems certain that Baby Girl will not be born on her actual due date, which is okay.  We were anticipating that.  But we are ready.  Or, I should say, as ready as we can be.

One thing that has been a constant presence on my mind is just how much I love my dear wife, Celeste.  I am continually reminded how lucky I am to have her forever at my side.  She is a marvel of strength, grit, grace, and beauty.  I can only hope our daughter inherits her mother’s long list of qualities, while avoiding the IED’s of my character.

Here's to August 10th.  Can't wait to see what it brings.

Teacher of the Year

Teacher of the Year

It should come as no surprise that Celeste, wonderwoman that she is, was named her school's Teacher of the Year yesterday.  Such a title is an honor at any school, to be sure, but Henderson Collegiate is a school full of all-star teachers.

Translation: the competition is stiff.

Seriously, you won't find a more dedicated, hard-working group of teachers anywhere in the state of North Carolina, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better faculty in the country.  Being named Teacher of the Year at Henderson Collegiate, well, that's like being named the MVP of the San Antonio Spurs.

Move over, Kawhi Leonard.

Yesterday, the staff at Henderson Collegiate had it's end-of-year retreat/beginning-of-the-year planning meeting.  It was a special event for another reason, too.  I have officially submitted my resignation at Vance County Schools, and have signed on to become the Founding Principal at Henderson Collegiate High School.  This is exciting for many reasons, one of which is that Celeste and I are now working at the same school (although she'll continue to work at the middle school as I take on the high school).  Yesterday was my first day on the new job, and while it was great to be surrounded by people who are as passionate about closing the achievement gap as I am, and to begin my work on a high school that doesn't exist yet, it was even greater to sit in a room with my wife and see her in action, and to hear her current principal go on and on about how she has set the gold standard for science education.

Don't believe me?  Of course you do.  Still, here's a little proof in the pudding:

Proficiency Scores for 5th Grade Science

Year	North Carolina	Vance County	Celeste
2013-2014	TBD	TBD	94.2%
2012-2013*	45.4%	37.2%	73.1%
2011-2012	75.9%	69.9%	91.9%

*2012-13 was the first year of the Common Core implementation

She is truly remarkable, and is more than deserving of the honor of Teacher of the Year (and wife of the year, and expectant mother of the year, etc…)

Anyway, this news just had to be shared.  Celeste tries to keep a low profile about these things, but if she wanted to keep a low profile about these things, she should have married someone else.  I'm like that crazy uncle at a wedding that's had too much to drink.  I say it like it is.  And what it is, is…Celeste rocks.  So please, have the decency to congratulate her by sending her an e-mail, making a comment below, delivering her a fruit basket, or sending a blank check to 1630 Oakdale Circle.

Cheers!

The Wind Beneath My Wings

When I was a kid, the months of October-March meant shoveling snow.  This is the curse of living in Northern Utah surrounded by the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains.  Shoveling snow was in our DNA.  It was usually done in the darkness of the early morning before my parents and siblings and I would gather around the dining table to read the scriptures together.  This was also a job that only the boys were employed to do, and one I would say that Clay and I grew to resent.  It meant waking up a half hour before everyone else and dressing ourselves in garb fit for the Arctic Circle.  That, perhaps, is an exaggeration, but the point I want to stress is that it was a cumbersome process just to get to the cumbersome project of removing an endless supply of falling snow from our sidewalks and driveway.

I have vague memories of my father’s silhouette against a lit hallway as he opened the door to my bedroom to beckon me to the work, then his silhouette disappeared in an explosion of blinding light from the ceiling fixture.  He’d say something soft but stern, letting me know that helping was not optional, and that our expeditious cold-weather assistance was expected, not requested.  I also remember one morning after he woke me up, I fell back asleep.  My bedroom light was still on, by my eyes had gone black.  I don’t know how long I was out.  Probably a few minutes, maybe longer.  But soon my absence was noticed and I heard the sound of my dad’s footsteps in my subconscious.  Before I had time to kick my own butt out of bed, I awoke to the angriest version of Herm charging at me from my bedroom door.  He did the butt-kicking for me.  I don’t remember to perfection, but it’s perfectly possible I had to change my underwear before I finally joined him and my brother outside in the winter wonderland.

Okay, let’s get back to mom.

Mom was always very aware of what we were going through on such mornings.  She was aware of the toiling that Clay and I, and of course my dad, would go through on almost a daily basis.  She was aware that the temperatures could drop below zero on certain mornings, and that each shovel’s load could be wet and heavy for my young back.  She was aware that the snow, when piled, was usually taller than I was.

I can’t remember if she did this every morning, or just most (I certainly remember it happening more than I remember it not happening), but when we finished our work, my mother would stand at the garage door as I put my shovel up and shed my winter gear, and she would sing.  She would sing, which she did with the voice of an angel.  And she wouldn’t just sing anything, and to my knowledge, she didn’t sing to just anyone.  The way it written in my memory, she would sing to me, and she would always sing the same song: Wind Beneath My Wings, by Bette Midler.  And she would always start it at the same place:

            Did you ever know that you’re my hero,

            And everything I would like to be?

            I can fly higher than an eagle,

            Cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

I would try to mask my embarrassment when she would do that, but it always made me feel loved.  Unquestionably.  Unconditionally.  My mother loved me.  If it was not made plain by the singing, it was certainly made plain by the warm breakfast that she usually had waiting for my brother and I (dad had already eaten several bowls of mixed dry cereals by the time he woke us up).  One day is was French toast, another day it was scrambled eggs, another day hot bowls of Cream of Wheat, which we kids became adept at perfecting with several pounds of brown sugar.

Pancakes were her specialty, and when pancakes coincided with a holiday, you could expect them to evolve into some creative culinary creation.  Green shamrock pancakes on St. Patrick’s Day.  Pink heart pancakes on Valentine’s Day.  Orange pumpkin pancakes on Halloween.  That is the kind of mother I grew up with.  Special pancakes and special songs.

Other times in my life she would sing that song to me.  Sometimes she would just whisper it in my ear if it was appropriate for the occasion.  I think it made its way into many milestone moments of my younger life: graduations, piano recitals, high-stakes tennis matches, saying goodbye at the MTC, my wedding day.  It kind of became our song, and it is inexorably linked to the memory of the mother of my childhood.  My sweet mother.  The wind beneath my wings.

Spring Break: The Wilmington Edition

At the end of a long, unseasonably cold and cruel winter (by North Carolina standards, of course), Celeste and I decided it was time to head to the coast.

*Full disclaimer: "cold" and "cruel" simply mean that snow actually fell this year, and temperatures dipped below the seasonal averages of 40-50 degrees.  I hate to admit it, and by doing so simultaneously betray my winter-wonderland roots, but after living in the Carolinas for seven years, I am now officially a cold-weather wuss.  Give me the sun.

We were joined in our adventure by the lively company of my childhood friend, Gabe, who is as good-natured as he is mischievous.  Thankfully his wife, Ellen (who by all standards is clearly out of his league) accompanied him and kept him in line as much as she could.  Together, we made merry our Spring Break and ambled around historic Wilmington, North Carolina.

Henrietta III on the Wilmington Riverwalk

Aww...

Wilmington and the Cape Fear River

Our first night there we soaked in the Riverwalk while eating at The Basics, a classic down-home Southern restaurant with ribs so tender they fell off the bone, and baked macaroni that tasted like gold.  It was just one of several Southern meals we shared, and by the end of it, Gabe and Ellen could see why it was so hard for us Southerners to stay fit.

We awoke the second day and toured the USS North Carolina, a WWII battleship that was involved in virtually every major battle in the Pacific theater, including Iwo Jima.  The ship shot down dozens of Japanese planes (or "Zeroes" for all you history buffs out there), and even survived a torpedo attack that left it with a hole in the ship's hull 32 X 18-feet wide.

The USS North Carolina (BB-55)

Defending Old Glory

Top Gun

Home Alone

We then toured the Bellamy Mansion, one of the oldest homes in the city, complete with its gardens and slave quarters.  Seeing such refined historic architecture put us in the mood for some more, so we boarded a horse-drawn carriage and took a tour through the historic districts of downtown Wilmington, where many of the homes had stood since before Lincoln, and some before Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.

The 10,000-square foot Bellamy Mansion, built the same year the Civil War began.

When the Union troops captured the city of Wilmington, the Bellamy Mansion was used as officers quarters.  The tobacco stains on the original marble mantlepiece are from the spittin' lips of those damn Yankee invaders.

From L to R: Bob, Prince, Celeste, Baby Girl Olsen, Jackson, Gabe, Ellen.  And yes, Celeste is 6 months pregnant.

From L to R: Prince, Bob, and Ron the Tour Guide

The oldest home in all of Wilmington, the Mitchell-Anderson House was constructed in 1738.

Two elements of my dream house are here included: columns and a wraparound porch.  Very Southern.

On our final day in town, we decided to hit the beach.  With folding chairs, cornhole boards, and a cooler full of food in tow, we made it to nearby Carolina Beach where we played in the ocean waves and laughed at old men searching for treasure with metal detectors.  We played a good deal of cornhole, laid in the sun, and played a little frisbee.  Gabe, in his infinite wisdom, decided to suck at throwing the frisbee and struck a sunbathing female in the head on a bad throw, kicking sand into her face at the same time.  Of course, it was me who was the first responder seeing as I was the one he was supposed to be throwing it to…let's just say it was very uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Cornholing.

Carolina Beach

Be grateful I kept my upper body hidden underwater.  It is known to do retinal damage in direct sunlight.

The Bushes.

From L to R: Forever Frosh, Most School Spirit

Now we are back in the world of gradebooks and lessons and discipline.  Does this depress us?  Not really.  I mean, it's not easy to come back from vacation, regardless of what job you have.  And in our case, summer vacation is already rapping at the door.

Wilmington, anyone?