New Shoes for Eric

On a crazy afternoon of picking up Eric at the Junior High so we could go to an appointment half an hour away to get his cello fixed,then hearing from Amy that we needed to go back to the Junior High and pick her up, I found fifteen minutes to stop at Shopko and buy Eric some new, much-needed shoes.

Size 13 Quadruple E!!!!!

When we got to the Junior High and found Amy, Eric began resituating the cello so he and it could fit in the back seat of the little car. Amy got in the car and buckled, so I thought we were ready to go and I started to drive away. Heard a lot of squawking from behind me. Turned to see Eric outside the car trying to keep a hold of the cello as it tried to fall out of the moving car. Whoops!

And I had run over his foot.

I would like to forget it.

But he keeps reminding me.

(But no harm done, I guess. It's a lightweight car. And Eric's foot is not...)

Almost is All Right

Went to this play at the High School with Amy, Rachel, and Quin. It was very well-done. But what gave me a lot to think about during the play and since is the director's note in the program.

"You can never go wrong with a love story, and we have tried to really examine the "love story" with this show. In this exploration, we have discovered that sometimes love hurts, even if you can't see the bruises. Sometimes love seems as tangible as a ring. Sometimes, love surprises you because you never saw it coming. And despite the uncertainty and even lost opportunities, love will always be worth it in the end.
We've also discovered the dichotomy of almost. Almost can mean "not quite", but it also can mean "nearly". As described by Martin Andrucki "not quite" conjures feelings of inadequacy and regret because we almost got there, but not quite. And yet the "nearly" aspect of almost is full of promise. As Andrucki points out, "another nail, and the job is done. And the nail is in my hand. Another mile, and we're there. And the tank is full of gas." This almost is full of hope. So...we would like to share with you a story about almost losing it all, but almost gaining everything. We didn't quite make it, but we're almost there."

This idea of "almost" has been so freeing for me. I see the flaw in something and instead of being totally bugged and bothered, I remember the play and think, "Almost is all right," and I feel at peace and move on.

***Disclaimer***
The play may have been cleaned up for this high school production. I can't vouch for it if you see it anywhere else. :)

What's the rush?

Had a really sweet day last Wednesday, although a little disconcerting in the morning. Went with Daniel and Paul to get their typhoid immunization. The nurse was a very nice lady who talked to them for an hour on all the precautions they were going to need to take to be safe from sickness and disease. Yikes. We all left the office rather overwhelmed. They should boil all their water, soak all their fruits and vegetables in a Clorox solution, and never eat lettuce. Never put exposed skin in a lake or stream. (There are worms that burrow right into healthy skin.) Wear insect repellent all the time. Treat all their clothes and the inside of their luggage with Permethrin every 6-8 weeks to ward off mosquitoes carrying Dengue Fever and other nasty diseases. Never walk around in bare feet— even in their apartments. Sigh. I don’t know if I can let them go after all.

Spending time with them was nice, though. We did a little more shopping, then went home to meet Chris. I had told Chris that we were going shopping, but would work on being home before he got there. He says,” I hope you’re not home, because then I get to…you know…(whispering now) watch a movie…” We’re screen-free except on weekends, so I think he wishes we weren’t home every day so he could sneak in a movie. Sure enough, we pulled up maybe one minute after his bus had come, but he was already downstairs with a Pokemon movie going, happy as could be. Daniel and Paul joined him for the afternoon and there was a lot of loud laughter coming through the floorboards. I’m going to miss that laughing…

Later that day I went to Parent Teacher Conferences at the Junior High with Amy and Eric. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The teachers seem to really like them and we chatted it up so friendly-like with each one. An English teacher mourned not having Amy this year and talked to Eric about how much she hoped he was going to do NAL (National Academic League) again this year. We especially laughed and laughed with the Orchestra teacher. Then a science teacher, Mr. Hillier, called us over even though he doesn’t have any Soderquist’s this year. He wanted to make sure I knew how much he thinks of Amy and the positive influence she is at school. He wanted to make sure she heard the good words. It was probably good. I had to agree with him that she wasn’t getting many accolades at home…because sometimes lately she’s…hmmmm how to say this nicely…not quite pitching in like she’s asked to do but I’m sure it’s a passing phase.

Amy and Eric are unique in our family. They’re very comfortable with people—even adults who are their teachers. It was a joy to see them in their element. I wanted to buy them ice cream I was so happy with them, but that would have been wrong on two accounts. One, it was the 29th and I was out of grocery money (…and “fun” money…and car repair money…and any other kind of money) until Oct 1. Two, that would be eating for emotional reasons and that’s not what I’m supposed to be teaching?

I really enjoyed conference over the weekend, especially Pres Uchtdorf’s talk on trimming our lives back to the essentials. It seems to fit in well with the life philosophy I adopted a month or so ago, “What’s the rush?” That philosophy is serving me well, mostly. It makes me enjoy people more and be nicer to them.

( I have to admit, I’m not always successful on a Tuesday evening when I’m tired and feeling pressure to get dinner ready before Quin leaves and I’m in the middle of eight loads of laundry and listening to everybody’s stories of the day and answering all sorts of people’s questions and realize that I still need to water the lawns and make visiting teaching appointments, do homework with a bunch of boys, get them to do their jobs and tuck them in their beds, clean the place up, etc. etc.)

Still looking for the perfect dress...

Hey! That's not Rachel, either!

Homecoming at Northridge

After two or more hours trying to get Rachel situated with a Homecoming dress, I went a little crazy...

Mission Prep

Heidi noticed in her call packet that she is scheduled to stay in the Provo MTC only three weeks. Then she flies to the MTC in Madrid! Her call information had told her to be on the lookout for the visa instructions, because it was important to act on them right away. Sure enough when she received her visa instructions in the mail last Tuesday, there was an FBI penal clearance to apply for TODAY. Fill out these forms today. Send in for the FBI clearance today!
And the church does a really good job of listing out specifically what needs to be done in what order and when, but this FBI clearance was complicated! Heidi had to fill out a form, get rolled fingerprints done by a law enforcement technician on a specific fingerprint form, get a money order to pay for the clearance, send it all in an express envelope with a tracking number, including a self-addressed, pre-paid express envelope, and label it all with “Deadline: 4 weeks!”. And she was supposed to do it all that Tuesday afternoon when it was delivered to South Weber.
Except that she’s in Provo. And she has no car. And most days she only has free from 11-1 and 3-5. And the Provo police department only does fingerprints certain nights a week from 5:30-7. And the post office on campus isn’t capable of doing express mail that you can track.
So I took advantage (again!) of having Daniel and Paul home in the middle of the day to greet Chris when he gets off the Kindergarten bus and I drove to Provo.
Picked Darling Heidi up at 12:35 PM in front of the Wilk and we chose to drive to Spanish Fork for our business. There was nobody but us at the Police Department. The woman there was pleasant and accommodating. The Post Office was nearly deserted, also, and the woman that helped us there had seen soon-to-be missionaries doing this sort of thing a zillion times. She not only answered our questions, but walked us through the whole thing. Heidi assured me she had already made herself a peanut butter sandwich from her locker on campus , so without wasting any more time, we scooted back to campus and arrived at 1:50, just in time for her next class. One hour and fifteen minutes and the whole deed was done, just twenty-four hours after she received the assignment in the mail. We were having all sorts of good feelings towards Spanish Fork.
And I was having such good feelings about helping a prospective missionary, that later that night when Paul was huddled in a corner (paper route fatigue + general I-have-been-waiting-nearly-four-months- to-go-on-this-mission-I-don’t-know-how-much-more-I-can-study-about-the-snakes-and-large-spiders-of-Southeast-Asia-I-think-I-will-go-crazy), I decided I need to do more for him and his mission preparations. So now we go out every day and buy sandals, get our eyes checked, get new glasses, renew our driver’s licenses, prove we know how to get gas, get tetanus and flu shots, etc. (Daniel comes, too.  And sometimes Chris.)
One of Paul’s birthday wishes was to go one last time to Antelope Island. It had to be a lengthy stay and it had to include a sunset. The first time we could find to do that was yesterday (Monday).
Here are my thoughts on Antelope Island and the Great Salt Lake in general…it stinks out there…and there is no beauty that we should desire it—it’s ugly and drab. Really.
But, and this has happened every time I’ve been, within a minute of getting out of the car on the west beaches, I am entranced. It’s magical out there. The 360° silhouettes of islands and mountains in the far distance. The quiet. The reflection of the sky in all its golden hour wonder in the water. The quiet. The ripples of warm sand under six inches of water for 30-40 feet out from shore. Did I say it was quiet?— and so far removed from the bustle of Davis County traffic, shopping, and sports. It soothed my soul. I keep shaking my head about how I felt out there, because it surprised me so much. Why wasn’t the whole world there? We practically had the island to ourselves.

The security of this blog is so weak.

It seems like just about everybody knows how to post on this blog except for me. :)

The announcement of Amy's blog was actually made by her, but I will put in a recommendation for it...

Amy's Blog

Amy got a blog!!! She's on it more than I am, and she's never even home. I guess it's something I need to work on. :)