Life in PICTURES

 ART time with neighbor kids.  Had a hard time finding a pic without other people's kids in it.  Turns out all kids love art.  Who knew?

 One of our more recent beach adventures.  Paradise Cove :)

 Yeah, he pretty much froze in this position for the entire time.  At least he wasn't screaming this time.  That would be normal for a beach trip for him.

 Pinewood Derby car testing.  Making sure it's fast enough!

 Oh look, a picture I don't HATE!  Taken by the up-and-coming photographer, Demetri.  So glad I don't have to develop rolls of film anymore with tons of random photos taken by kids.  On the other hand, now they take hundreds!

 Our Easter egg hunt.  He's just waiting till it's over now so he can eat the candy.

 Olie was a little more into finding all the eggs.

 Dad hid Demetri's eggs really really well.

 It took forever.

Xander, cleaning up.  Actually, he thinks these are balls and throws them all over the place.

For the most part, this is in chronological order.  Homeschool, Beach, Pinewood Derby, Easter.  Yep, that's what we've been up to.

A Long Day

Today is election day.  Also a holiday for all the children in the neighborhood- which means I had little success getting mine to stay inside and do their schoolwork today.  They did a little this morning.  But right now, there are about 8 children on my porch playing with Demetri’s CSI forensic entomology kit.  What does a bug kit have to do with CSI?  As nearly as I can tell, nothing...just hype to help make the kids want to buy the product.  Anyway, my kids, and all the neighborhood kids, seem to love it!  They’ve been catching insects and studying them for days now, from the time everyone gets home from school till dinnertime or dark, whichever comes first.

Okay, yeah, that was this morning.  As for this evening, I don’t have anything nice to say about the election, fellow Americans, etc.  Really. Nothing.  So we’ll end it there. Oh, except that Olie said to me this morning, “I vote for Jesus!” High point of the day.

Xander is teething.  His gums are swollen, he has a high fever, and he alternated between crying and sleeping on my lap all day.  Well, this is the second day.  Poor baby.  No sleep, getting nothing done, all the normal stuff for teething time.

Demetri made dinner, mostly.  They are going to learn how to cook if they have to live at home until they are 30.  Okay, so I’ll probably kick them out before that.  But they will know how to cook...and launder clothes...and clean, etc.  They each have a night to make dinner again.  Amazing how hard it is to get back into the groove after you’ve been traveling for a while.  We’re getting there.

I’m winning the war.  Every cockroach I’ve seen in the last 2 days has been dead.  That puts a smile on my face.  But, lest they should break through the ranks, I must not become complacent and slack off!  At least it keeps the house clean.

I have been called to cub scouts.  Again.  For the third time- and so far, in every place I have lived in the past 4 years. I should give in and buy the uniform this time, and accept that I’ll probably be in cub scouts for the next 10 years or more. 

Now my blog is officially up to date :)

This week has been a little blah- though I’ll take that over drama and the wrong kinds of excitement.  We’ve got a packed weekend planned anyway.

I’ve had final presentations in two classes.  I learned a lot about Powerpoint and I can now awesomely embed music into a presentation to go along with a previously mundane series of mouse clicks.  Well, I played a lot with animation, transitions, backgrounds, etc. as well, and it was really kind of fun.  Some of Shawn’s geekiness must have rubbed off because after that I was so excited I sat thinking up ways to use my newfound skills and seriously considered a family Christmas Powerpoint presentation to end the year on.

Oh yes, and I now have a smartphone.  A MyTouch 4G to be exact, which Shawn spent many hours poring over eBay to find.  Shawn’s is still in the process of getting here.  He must be more picky about his phone than mine :).  So, I’m learning how to use it, and spent far too long last night downloading apps like “shopping list” and putting music on this novel device.  Shawn just hopes I actually use it.

“We” (read, Shawn and Demetri- but I have been chauffeuring) have spent much of the week planning and making a Pinewood Derby car.  The big event is next Tuesday.  I am completely surprised at the amount of work it takes to actually make one of these things.  Demetri has been up late doing a lot of sanding.  It has to be spray-painted like, 3-4 times, and in between paintings it has to dry for 24 hours!  In my opinion, they’ll be pretty lucky to get it done by Tuesday, but they’re sure working on it.

Last night’s famous quote:  Demetri walked in the bedroom on his way to bed and immediately came back out to tell me that Teddy, who had been in bed for a very long time, was still awake.  When I peeked in to look Teddy quickly shook his head and said, “No, I not still awake!” 

Shawn, schedules, and I'll probably feel better tomorrow.

Roundtable tonight.  We learned how to make water rockets with 2 liter pop bottles.  My scouts will love it!  You should have seen all the adults out on the lawn in the dark launching a rocket...it was hilarious to watch.

Well, Shawn's going to China a week earlier than he was supposed to, but he comes back two weeks earlier than we expected.  So we don't get to see his family, and he won't be gone over Thanksgiving.  I believe he only gets a four day weekend for Thanksgiving anyway, so I may get to learn how to cook a turkey this year...or maybe I'll just turn it over to him and let him do a ham.  (They love ham, and I hate it, so they never get it unless Shawn actually goes out and buys and cooks it.)

We're going camping tomorrow (ward camp out).  The boys were quite put out this evening, because we packed the car today so they thought we were going today. They had friends over this afternoon and they all went outside and rode scooters.  I love it when they find something fun to do and entertain themselves.

Got all my homework done for the week, so I don't have to worry about it this weekend.  Of course, that means we didn't get a lot of homeschool done this week, just the basics.  It also means the house was barely liveable all week.  I'm grateful this is my last semester.

We're good...I mean alive, fairly healthy, still learning and growing, etc.  Trying to get a good schedule/routine down to cope with this semester and Shawn being gone for a while.  Can you go crazy in five weeks of no contact with your husband (while pregnant and in school?--I should have kept it down to one class)?  Well, maybe he'll be able to e-mail me.

While I'm living a pretty nice, drama-free life (except for nursery, which was just hilarious :)), I am also getting restless here.  I'm ready to be done and we have another 9 months here.  I'm sure I can handle it, and it's not the place; it's beautiful here.  It's the schedule.  Twice this week I saw Shawn for about an hour before I had to leave and he had to go to bed.  My love language is time, so it's not working out very well.  It's interesting that he doesn't do anything with friends (not that I'm complaining).  He likes to be with me during every free moment (I don't coerce him, that's just how he is)...he just doesn't have many of those lately.

The end of a comparably decent day

Oh goodie, a new month.  Shawn is over halfway done here!  I've noticed that most of my intended posts lately have just ended up in my journal.  I really do write most nights, they just don't always make it onto the blog.

The cub scout's outdoor cookout went better than expected :) and I think they all enjoyed it.  Families were invited and all the little kids looked like they were having a blast.  We have two new scouts and two more coming in this month!  I'm sure glad we just split into two dens.

I just finished the handouts and class outline for the herbal class I'm teaching (which was called a "medical emergency class" in the e-mail sent out to the entire ward.  By me?  Ha!  I just agreed to share the herbs I can't live without...hope the crowd isn't too disappointed). 


And now, I do believe it is time for bed.  The headache I've had for the past two days is finally slipping (the advil probably helped) and my hives are going down.  Hives from what?  I don't know.  I just get them occasionally.  This bout wasn't bad.  Sometimes I look like I have welts across my face and entire body.  I think it's a food allergy, although I can't figure out what food.  I've been told it's from stress.  Here's to a low-stress diet :).

Some weeks I have more to say than others

I'm home...an hour and a half after cub scouts is over. I did stay and talk, mostly about cub scout things. But I was also pulled over on the way home, and sat there for 20 minutes. I know because I was watching the clock. I was also watching the policemen behind me, who waited for a backup car, walked around my car to see if anything else could possibly be wrong aside from my headlight being out, looked in every window, and purposely shined a flashlight in my rear view mirror every time I tried to look at them in it (that was actually kind of hilarious). I'm not sure if there were slow computers or if they were standing out there just talking about good times, but eventually two came back and gave me some sort of a strange citation...a reversible citation? Anyway, I go get it fixed and show up at the police department so they can make sure I did it. Not a problem...different...but much more sensible than just giving people tickets for things they didn't know were wrong with their car. Demetri was terrified...we spent the 20 minutes going over why we weren't going to jail, what exactly was wrong with the car, why that was a problem, whether policemen can pull people over "for fun," how they can tell things from looking up license plates and looking at a driver's license, etc, etc.

On to life. I'm 8 weeks pregnant. I can eat potatoes and ice cream. Rice makes me instantly sick...even the smell. So do eggs, but I love eggs so much that I eat them once in a while anyway, and pay for it the rest of the day. I lay on the couch more than I should, but usually still manage to get dinner on the table and the laundry done. Evenings are the worst, so I'm slowly going back to the crockpot.

Demetri starts his charter school on the 15th, and for the most part he's excited. I'm trying to put together a curriculum (which I have ample time for as I lay on my couch) as well as a halfway organized cub scout plan. I'm learning a lot. I'm very excited about a website called scouttrack.com; it will eliminate soooo much work if we can actually use it!

Shawn and I are both nursery leaders now. It's much easier than an older class because I can walk or sit and because Shawn's so awesome with the little kids. I'm glad he's having fun...I need to take a video camera.

Shawn is going to China for several weeks. And I think I'm going to cook tv dinners the whole time he's gone. Yep, good plan. He helped a lot with the house over his vacation. Maybe not his idea of a vacation...but, well, he is getting paid to go study (and SIGHTSEE) in China, and I get to stay home with the kids, and I really wasn't feeling that well. I'm very grateful that my husband loves me.

Several of my good friends are moving in the next couple of months (or have moved recently), and I'm depressed. Happy for them...but depressed all the same. It's been so hard to explain to the children why they can't visit with their friends anymore. Well, not hard to explain, just hard for them to understand. The hardest to take is Alyissa moving. It's probably rare to be so close to your next door neighbor, but the kids thought of it as a second home, and walked in as they pleased (even though they still got in trouble for that!). Our kids played together almost every day. Mine have been asking me why strange men are in her house (the management people getting it ready to rent again) and if we're going to eat dinner with her family.

I had to go over child abuse prevention with Demetri as a cub scout requirement. One of the warnings was not to accept gifts from adults without your parents' permission. This evening he asked me if a Bear scout could be a child molester. I, being slightly alarmed, replied that it's possible...another scout had given him a "gift"--an origami dragon he'd made. I chuckled and explained that it was okay to accept the gift, and thanks for telling me about it. He might be a tad bit paranoid after that prevention stuff but better safe than sorry, eh.

I've actually been keeping more busy than I'd like to be, but it'll slow down in a few days, and even more as my friends continue to move :(. I went to a friend's house today and she showed us how to make Hungarian pastries. I can't wait for her to translate the recipes and e-mail them to me. They were so yummy, and I even kept them down. Hooray for friends who are great cooks! But mostly, hooray for friends in general :).

The very short version of the past week.

I'm getting in the habit of going to bed earlier, but my house is getting messier and messier all the time. I think I'm going to have to revert back to my old habit of cleaning the house after the kids are in bed but before homework. Life is just easier when I start the day with a manageable house.
Goal for the weekend: tame whatever living things have taken up residence in the refrigerator.

"We" started violin lessons today. I'm learning along with my son so I can help him practice at home. I'm dubious about how much help I'll be, and crossing my fingers that we can keep the violin away from little fingers.

The Raingutter Regata (comparable to the pinewood derby, but not as big, and with boats) took place yesterday. It was a success, as far as those types of activities go, but I'm rethinking my position on competition. Other than that, yesterday was a pretty difficult day...but today was much better. In the end it probably all balances out.

My research paper is on music and art in public schools. I'll feel better about it when I can see the progress.

If you can't tell from my short disjointed paragraphs, I don't really have a lot to say...but I felt I've been neglecting this blog, and I just didn't have the energy to write about some big political, moral, or other reflection-worthy issue.

The Recent Goings On

30^th May 2011

I have forgotten so many things I intended to write. I suppose that’s just what happens when you put things off. It’s been a long but good day. We went hiking around Point Lobos State Reserve with our neighbors; it’s very beautiful. We had a BBQ that also doubled as a birthday party. And we bought a piano. It’s not perfect, but it’s a piano. :) Now…where to put it…

The things that stand out…hmm. Oh yes, ½ day stint potty-training a 2 yr old before I figured out he didn’t even know what a toilet was for. He absolutely refused to wear diapers that morning and I got ahead of myself and thought it would be a good time to potty-train. Nope. He never did quite get it figured out and I’m perfectly content to wait another year. In the meantime I just have to put the diapers out of reach because my 3 yr old thinks he wants to be a baby again and kept putting the diapers on himself. Strange.

Baptism! It went very well. Shawn’s parents were here and it was so nice to have them :). Demetri was excited to be baptized with his friend, he picked a place to go to dinner, and he was ecstatic to see his grandparents. Now the others are asking when it’s their turn. He’s trying to focus on reading a few scripture verses every day and understand what each verse means.

My little brother graduated and had his Eagle Court of Honor this week. I don’t remember him being old enough to do either of those things. But I’m proud of him!

I’m now a Cub Scout Den Mother. No joke. I’m a tad nervous about that, the entertaining and teaching several 8 yr olds part. I can do one of those at a time, sometimes, but it’ll take a lot of practice to do both. Guess I’ll have some time though.

We’ve been here for 5 months. 11 more to go, and I have no idea where we’re going next, but the kids and I will probably spend next summer at my parents’ while Shawn is in Texas. Then, we’ll be notified 30 days in advance of Shawn’s new duty station. He joined the army so I could learn patience and be flexible. Well…I guess flexibility is more of a family trait, so I’m good there.

The kids have made friends in the ward and now love going to church. It was pretty difficult for a couple of months. I’m glad they are adjusting. I'm glad I'm adjusting too. It's pretty, we have good friends, and I'm learning some new skills (cooking, laundry, and how to ignore messes when I don't have the time to clean them up, haha).

Ah yes, blackout curtains. We now, thank goodness, have them. A necessity when children go to bed an hour before it really gets dark. It is for my children at least. These curtains also help break the established habit one of them has of waking up the moment any light enters his room, and staying awake. I'm getting more sleep= everyone is happier. Really.

I tried to upload images- pictures from today, but I think they're too big? So I'll have to learn how to resize them and then try again.