I'm Back

The truck is back home. Life is back to normal again (whatever normal means). Ken’s truck looks almost… brand new, well the front end that is. I can’t complain, I’m very grateful to have insurance. Ken is just grateful to have his old faithful back.

Daria started choir this week. I’m excited for Daria but inside I’m kicking and screaming all the way as I know this is the beginning of the never ending schedule nightmare. I’m such a sucker for wanting my schedule to be so “controllable”. I will miss our morning walks with the other ladies since we need to be at school by 8am instead of 8:40am. We walked by ourselves the three days that Daria had choir. Then I just sat and waited for the other ladies to arrive and then we walked back home together.

As I was vacuuming under the couch today I had this funny little thought of how I really enjoy cleaning under the couch. It’s fun to find lost treasures. So far in my house those treasures are not food or trash, but usually some lost Lego piece or some part of a toy that we’ve searched high and low for. Today I found some letters that go to the Leap Frog letter factory. This is a good thing because I just can’t stand having only portions of a toy or game.

Since Lori and I never arrived to our visiting teaching appointment last week due to some unfortunate events, on Friday Ken and I (along with a few other friends) were able to help Cinamon move out of her apartment. She lived in a quant 1930’s building downtown. I love those old buildings. They have so much character. We moved all day, from 9a until 2pm, then we went back again on Saturday 8a – 1pm. The trash we left on the corner for pickup. Unfortunately the large trash pick up only happens once a month, and that once a month wasn’t this week, so the landlord said get it off or be fined. So 8pm on Sunday Ken, Jaron, Chris, and Tim drove back down to load the trash back up and bring it up here. I love our trash people. It was trash pickup today and they picked up every single bit of it. Cinamon is a pretty cool lady and I’m totally enjoying getting to know her.

25 days and counting. I’m not sure how this happens, but Jenni and I chose our Halloween costumes in August with grand plans of having them sewn WAY before October. For some strange reason neither of us has made any progress. I have cut out the material and patterns, remember, that was the day I set Ken’s laptop on the sub woofer. But not one stitch of material has been sewn together. This procrastination happens every year. Now that we are down to the wire again, we have had to look at our calendars and actually schedule in sewing time. Wish us luck.

We had some friends in town this week. David and Michele, and their 3 kids. We met years ago when Ken and I were first married, but they moved off shortly after. Michelle and I actually used to be visiting teachers together. We’ve kept in contact all these years and it was good to find that it was as if no time had passed as we got together. Even our kids had a blast playing with each other for the first time. Daria and Kimberly hit it off right away and have promised to write each other letters (a lost art!!!)

David is a Nikon instructor which turned out to be beneficial for me since I love my Nikon. I got some hands on training and tips and even a chance to try out his $1800.00 lens. If only I could justify that!

Ok, here are some funny questions from Dustin:

“Mom, how do we know there really is a God” (realizing that as cute of a comment as this is I found it a perfect teaching opportunity to encourage Dustin to pray about it. We talked about other people who have seen God – people in the scriptures, Joseph Smith, etc, but Dustin will have to find out for himself).

“Mom, how do we find the person we’re supposed to marry?” (Ok, can someone just slap me? Dustin is only 5, can’t he ask me five year old questions like why are their so many colors of crayons?? LOL! Actually his deep questions don’t bother me, they just surprise me as I’m sure all of your kids do to when they ask various things.)

“Mom!!! Why did you make my lunch?!! I wanted to make it!!!” (Dustin starting school has created such a phenomenon in our house. It irritates him when he doesn’t get to make the lunches. So I gladly let him the next night. He successfully made a lunch of himself and Daria).

Thoughts from Daria”

“Mom!!! You interrupted me again!!” (While I was trying to help her with her timing during piano practice)

“Mom, will you sign this” (while I’m talking on the phone of course signing something can never wait until AFTER I’m off the phone)

Actually I had parent teacher conferences with both Daria and Dustin’s teachers. Daria is doing great, her teachers are very nice and they said Daria is a very polite, helpful, student. Daria does love school and I like that about her. She loves to learn (she just doesn’t love to practice). She LOVES choir. I can’t wait to hear the choir sing for the first time. It’s so exciting to watch her dabble in her own interests.

Dustin is doing great. The teacher’s exact words were “He’s bored”. I figured that would happen, especially since he’s learning stuff I taught him two years ago. Fortunately his teacher is smart enough to provide him with other learning and challenge opportunities, and Dustin loves school so it doesn’t seem to faze him that he’s already learned this stuff.

Tomorrow is the second day of General Conference. We’ve got some people coming over to watch it with us and Ken is trying a Turkey on the “Green Egg”. I’ll be thinking of all of you as I sink my teeth in to some mouth watering flavorful turkey!