2021 Family Quotes
Joyce, age 10
“What is a paradox? I thought it had to do with paradise. And then something about paddocks. The paddocks in paradise."
“You could try biking on the treadmill.”
Joyce, brainstorming with Oak about exercise possibilities in level 4 lockdown.
Sage, waking up and coming out of the bedroom: “Can I finish the puzzle?”
Joyce: ”Yes, there are ten pieces left.”
Joyce worked on the puzzle all morning while Sage slept, but saved the last bit for Sage.
“I mostly get sore abs from laughing too hard.”
Joyce, contributing to a discussion about core exercises.
“Nina said, ‘We gotta beat that old Grandpa.’ Sage and I just LOOKED at each other! - that ‘old grandpa’ was Nick.”
Joyce, reporting to the family about how her orienteering sprint had gone. This year Joyce ran all the
sprints without anyone older alongside her.
“Whenever Joyce is not here I get so much done. … but I don’t like it.”
Sage, moping around while Joyce was at a birthday party all afternoon on a Saturday.
“I feel very spoiled with all the new jackets I have.”
Joyce, in Wellington, after I bought new puffers and purple jackets for both her and Sage, replacing the matching magenta jackets that they’ve worn for years.
Sage, age 13
“I do have big muscles! They are just in small parts of my body.”
Sage, responding to teasing from Danny while we were in Hana, HI.
“Is that a plank? Maybe bring your back up a little bit.”
Sage, spoken innocently to big Noah, as she led a family workout at our Airbnb in Las Vegas.
“I would not have let you say 'no' very easily.”
Sage said this after a disagreement with me about getting paid for jobs in quarantine, but this quote could have applied to a hundred different situations over the year. She can be very tenacious in the face of injustice.
“‘Awaken to our awful situation…’ Now it makes sense why Mom would get so sad about Trump. Before I sometimes felt like she was too sad.”
An excerpt from the Book of Mormon which Sage shared as part of her ‘spiritual thought’ for the day.
“For a minute I forgot it was a machine so I just said thank you.”
Sage, catching herself saying ‘thank you’ to our laundry machine. “I was just so happy to have it done.”
“That was more tiring than the Timber Trail.”
Sage, about her bike ride home from school. It was 4K vs 40K, but 75-degrees Fahrenheit is tough for a kid who’s grown up in Taranaki.
“Do you know, it’s so much fun to get ready for bed with Joyce.”
“I talked way too much on the way home. Did you ever want to talk?”
Sage to Mercy, after a bike ride home from school
“I just remember the bottom half of their bodies.”
Sage, re her memories of our home teachers in Utah as a 5yr old
“Reading and science were the two revolutions in my life, they changed my entire life and things weren’t the same again. You know how Oak was reading that book Sapiens about the different revolutions? Those are the revolutions in my life.”
Sage, enjoying her science class at NPGHS
“I love band-aids!! They just make me feel so taken care of!!”
Sage enthuses about many things. “I loved EVERY minute of tonight!”
BONUS QUOTES FROM SAGE
“I just love being around you, Joyce.”
I overheard Sage saying this to Joyce while she and Joyce were in the bathroom brushing their teeth.
“I actually have a lot of skills, like sewing and ping pong and playing lots of instruments.”
a solid self-affirmation in a quiet moment
“I’ve kinda always wanted to chip a tooth”
Sage to Joyce when Joyce said sorry about hitting her chin with her head on the tramp. “Not in an actual way, just in a faraway way. I thought it would be an interesting experience.”
“I just LOVE washing my face. It makes me SO happy!”
Another example of the many things Sage gushes about.
“Mom, guess what? I can relevé on one foot! It’s so scary! It makes me sweat every time I do it!”
“Will one of you guys heart my gif so that everybody won’t think it’s weird?”
Sage, after one of her first posts to Jones Whanau
“It’s actually been really good for me to have warts. It makes me more accepting of - - things.”
Sage, re the 4 persistent and large warts on her hands.
“Wow, I just used the word, ‘connotation.’ I’ve never said that word before in my life.”
Sage: “I know all these words that I’ve never used.”
Mercy, age 16
“I think I weigh a round number. Like 50 or 60 or 70.”
Mercy, after reading a Kathmandu card about not carrying more than 15 percent of your body weight.
“One of my favourite days ever!! You won’t be able to comprehend all my froth even if I try to write it out but ooooossssshhhhhhh. Perfect weather, skuxx as friends, love our mountain.”
Mercy’s 16th bday ‘party’ with Bree, Abby, and Francis was a 42KM around-the-mountain trek.
“People were cramping, people had blisters, their hips were sore, but yeah, it was pretty low intensity for D to O. People weren’t dying like they usually do.”
After the annual Desert-to-Oasis training camp.
Statements from all three girls as they watched Olympic baseball on TV:
“It’s so funny that they are running in full pants and belts.”
"What if the swinger doesn’t hit it?"
"I reckon it would be easy to rip into the form of the guy who’s throwing."
[referring to the pitcher’s windup]
"How do you know what’s happening? I’ve never watched baseball before.”
"Wow, they’re gooood at chucking."
"Who gets mitts?”
"What happens if you get out? Are you out for the whole game?"
“I started a foundation today.”
Not what I expected to hear at family dinner. ”I did it during seminary and a free spell at school.”
“My schedule says you play tonight at midnight. I hope that’s right. Good luck Mercy. I know you’ll be fabulous. You’re such a gifted and beautiful young woman and I’m so proud of you. Please let me know how it goes. I love you”
Dr Fox, before Mercy’s professional performance of the entire Mendelssohn Concerto No. 2. Dr. Fox is a notoriously strict teacher, so her compliments land heavy. She has been Mercy’s piano teacher since Mercy was 5.
“There we go. Oak’s seen it. Prepare myself for the rip.”
Mercy, after posting a video she created with the NPGHS head girls during the Covid lockdown.
“Gap year? What! Dux gone bogan!”
Danny to Mercy. Mercy, breaking down boundaries and expectations. At the graduation dinner, all the girls’ names are read along with their plans for the coming year. Let’s just say that the valedictorian is usually not the kind of girl to take a gap year.
“I thought a cheeseburger had only cheese.”
Mercy, after asking why the cheeseburgers at In-n-Out cost more than the hamburgers. Can’t blame this educational gap on living in NZ, land of Maccas and Burger Fuel.
“Aardvark! What IS that?? Surely it’s not real - it’s imaginary!”
Yet another gap in Mercy’s education (besides baseball and cheeseburgers).
Mercy: “Gonzalez! Wow, I’d love to have the last name, Gonzalez!”
Noah: “Why?”
Mercy: “It sounds so speedy!”
Noah: “It’s about the 4th most common name in the US right now.”
Mercy: “Really?! I’ve never heard of anyone named that before.”
While addressing thank you notes for Noah and Ari. “Mercy Jones” sounds pretty speedy to me! @mercy.on.a.mish
Oak
Me: “Hand on your heart, How do you feel?”
Oak: “Happy. Relieved.”
Oak, on the drive home from his mission to Wellington, NZ
“I was going to go for 4 hours, but at 3 and a half I’d run a marathon so I just decided to stop.”
An example of the random comments which still surprise me at dinner
“It made me proud to have grandparents like that.”
Oak, telling the girls at dinner about listening to Grandma and Grandpa report their mission on a family Zoom call. He listened in from work.
“I look like such a ski bogan. I look like more of a ski bogan than the real ski bogans.”
Oak, after buying a purple helmet because it cost $20 less than the black ones and matched his second-hand ski jacket.
“I felt like I was lifting up kids most of the day.”
Oak, re one of his first days of ski instructing.
“I cooked mushrooms as part of my dinner for the first time tonight. I feel like that’s an increase of some kind of maturity.”
“Y’know, you could probably win an adventure race.”
Sky to Oak as they finish the last leg of the longest waterfall race. Oak must have been typically understated when introducing himself.
“Everyone knows you pay more for your bike than your car.”
Everyone?
“I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”
Sage, confiding to me in a worried tone re Oak cutting his long hair in the bathroom.
“The never-ending stoke of life.”
Oak, about getting up at 2 am for an outdoor mish. I feel like this quote sums up Oak’s basic attitude.
Danny
“I will never own a gas-powered car. You can write that down, Mom.”
“I didn’t realize what a big name it was - MGH - but from a couple people’s reactions, I started to wonder.”
Danny, a few weeks into his summer internship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
“Neurosurgery. I’m interested in doing that. I don’t know if I want the competition. I do want the competition.”
One of those times when you hear yourself say something and then instantly know if it’s not true or not. He paused for only a split second before correcting himself by saying, “I DO want the competition.”
“I kind of love it.”
Danny, about the computer he built. Have I ever heard Danny gush before?
“I earned 60 cents in six hours.”
Danny, about mining for bitcoin.
“I don’t know how they could not! How can they justify it to themselves? They wrote their name down, too.”
Danny, about why he was one of 3 out of 25 missionaries who followed through with their commitment to run the St George marathon together. I’m more proud of Danny for being a man of his word than even running a marathon.
“As soon as someone's statement is no longer of import you can interrupt them.”
Danny, rules for life (?)
Noah
“If anyone is really going to know me, they need to know Letters to a Young Mormon and My Side of the Mountain. Desert Solitaire is right up there, too.”
“Harvard’s the most cautious of any place except for maybe a rest home.”
Noah, regarding experiencing life as a Harvard student during Covid.
“Cassie!”
Cassie was on the pros list for Utah when Noah and Ari were deciding whether to get married in Utah or Nevada. Cassie was Noah’s car during the time he and Ari were dating.
“People are joking about how I’ve initiated a hostile takeover of the church at Harvard. It was even worse when Danny and Ariann were here, and we’d walk into ward council like a squad.”
Noah was Elders’ Quorum president and the LDSSA president at the same time, and Danny and Ariann were also on the ward council because of their callings.
“I like that she accents the spiritual side of me.”
-one of many things Noah loves about Ariann. I’ve also heard him enthuse about her athleticism, her steadiness, her persistence, her work ethic, her willingness to go on adventures, and her organizational skills, to list just a few things off the top of my head.
Mike
“And, Dad, maybe you could play a bit softer on the next one.”
Mike, channelling his inner child, had drummed so enthusiastically during one of the hymns Sage chose for our family band, that he forgot to listen to anyone else.
“I was so sad! You take us to Mcdonald's once a year and now you’ll probably never take us there again.”
Sage to Mike. In an unusual move, Mike had decided to drive through McDonald’s for ice creams, but he forgot about the four bikes on top of his car until he heard the crunching sound as he hit the top of the drive-through.
“If fishing could be like this, I’d go every day.”
Mike, fishing over the balcony in our backyard in a special fishing scheme prepared by the girls for Father’s Day.
“I only had one camera to take pictures with.”
For Mike, leaving the house with only one camera feels exciting and risky.
“You’re good at buying things on sale. …It’s not always a good thing, but you are good at it!”
Sage to Dad
“Where’s the bugle man? Where’s the bugle man?”
The coach of a different team (Motueka) as her team finished the 2-day expedition at the 2021 Hillary Challenge. Mike earned himself a national reputation during all of our kids’ adventure racing years and the WWI bugle that I found in a German antique shop.
“It made me glad that I have more to hang my hat on than work and career.”
Mike after a day of auditing one of the other hospital departments.
Holly
“I assume this is Holly?”
A nurse at the doctor’s office, pointing to Sage. I enjoy living in New Zealand, where people regularly assume that one of my daughters is named Holly, not me. In NZ, “Holly” is more often a name for a teenager or a child than an adult.
“I got so much ‘tough beans’.”
Sage said this to our church congregation as she described what it’s like to live with me. (Mother’s Day, 2021)
“You should have had ten kids, you do such a good job raising them.”
Anne Russell to me. She says this to me almost every week at church, and it always makes me feel great.
“Mad-eye Moody is like Nick.”
I said this about Nick Collins, who is a family friend already mentioned in the comments above. We listened to Harry Potter on the way to church almost every week in 2021, and I loved it. “Constant vigilance.”
“You don’t actually do that perfectly. That’s so smart!”
Sage, as she walks across the deck that I just swept. (Sage: “When I do it, it takes ages.”)
“No offence, but what makes you qualified to teach First Aid?”
Holly S to me, after I landed a lucky job with the NZ Red Cross.
“I’d like skins on my skis all of the time.”
I said this to Oak after he told me what skins are.
“I don’t have words to say how much I love you.”
Sage to me. I feel appreciated by everyone in my family, immediate and extended. It’s such a happy way to live. I thank Mike for setting such a good example to our kids of expressing love and thanks.
Links to previous years:
2020 Part 2 - Everyone else
https://hollypicsoftheweek.blogspot.com/2019/01/2018-quotes.html
2017-year-in-quotes
2016 Quotes
2015-year-in-quotes
2014 Quotes
2013 quotes-search-for-trends
