A brief update

Although brevity may be the soul of wit, I'm not aiming to be witty here--just succinct. The reason? We've been out of town all weekend, I'm tired (and probably dehydrated!) and my brain isn't functioning at optimum capacity.

School started last week for Dan and I--so far, I think we both feel fairly confident. I'm teaching two classes: one online (freshman comp) and one face to face (intermediate composition--although I'm not sure why we have an "intermediate" requirement when there's no advanced one). The latter is a new class for me, a themed writing course that I'm focusing on classical rhetoric. So far, no one in class seems to know more than I do about the topic and I've managed to sound moderately intelligent. All good things.

This weekend, we headed up north to see my youngest brother who was in town for just a few days before starting in on a new semester at Yale (he's finished his law degree; now he just needs to finish his history degree). It was fun to see him and his wife--more fun (sorry Justin!) to see his girls and watch the cousins play. Andrew has found a new friend in his cousin Eli (pronounced Ellie--short for Elizabeth), who's a scant three months younger than he is.

In honor of the occasion, my mom invited my siblings and all of her sisters in the area over for a breakfast. Although not everyone came (my other brother, Jared, wasn't feeling well and not all of my cousins came), lots of people did: my sister, her husband and their three kids; my aunts Dahnelle, Tera, and Jeannie; Dahnelle and Tera's significant others; and Dahnelle's three daughters, the oldest daughter's husband, and the youngest daughter's boyfriend (fiance? I'm not quite sure). It was fun to see all of them--although the volume in the house increased quite a bit. It was also the first time in a long time that I've seen either of my kids act shy, although the combined prospect of all those relatives could be a little daunting.

And Evelyn discovered a previously unsuspected fondness for Princess Tiana--more to the point, she discovered a lovely, silky blue princess night gown in grandma's infamous closet that fit her (and which features the aforementioned Tiana). Grandma said she could have it; I told her not until after dinner--this pronouncement was met with tears and drama. She wore it last night and was only talked into her church dress when I pointed out that it, too, was blue--and when she woke up crying from her nap in the car (sobbing uncontrollably would be a more accurate description), she was only comforted by two things: her mom's arm (stretched uncomfortably back to her) and watching Princess and the Frog. When we got closer to home, the interests of the movie palled, mom's arm got tired and sore from the unnatural position, and Evelyn began crying for her princess dress. Magically, her tears stopped as soon as we got her home and into her dress. I'm starting to wonder if we might have a problem here . . .

At any rate, we're glad to be home (I'll post pictures when I feel up to it)--glad to have seen family, but also glad to be home. Andrew starts preschool tomorrow and is unbearably excited about it. We'll keep you posted.

des Beaux arts

Outside of Evelyn's naptime disasters, this has been a week for the fine arts. As many of you know, every summer the local community hosts a Shakespearean festival. This week, my mom came down for a few days, so we took advantage of locals-only discounts (and a group discount courtesy of my mother-in-law) and went to two plays: Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (actually quite funny--the actors did some great physical comedy and the story itself involves just about every cliche you can imagine for the spy/thriller genre), and Pride and Prejudice (not much to say about that--it is what it is! I realized, though, that I have read the book/seen the movie way too many times--I found myself mentally reciting many of the lines with the actors and there were *no* surprises.) We thoroughly enjoyed both shows--although I'd have to say that 39 Steps was probably the better of the two.

As part of the festival, each evening, festival staff hosts a green show on the lawns of the university. I'm told that they rotate through three different shows: an Irish, English, and Scottish night--but we went on three different occasions (the last time deliberately aiming for one we hadn't yet seen) and only saw two, the Irish and the Scottish show. As you know from our last post, the kids have loved it--we went two more nights this week. This time, however, we learned to come early and sit along the sidewalk, so the kids could dance in front of us without (I hope!) disturbing our neighbors too much and, more importantly, without trampling on anyone (Andrew, this means you). I have to confess that I was a little embarrassed each time when Andrew started to dance--he's just so crazy (see the video below and you'll see what I mean) and he doesn't ever look where he's going.

Evelyn, on the other hand, is much more graceful. Like her brother, though, she's a little social butterfly, drawn to the company of other people. At Andrew's soccer game earlier this week, she befriended another girl (probably 6 or 7 years old) and they spent the entire game time together. Each night we attended the green show, Evelyn found a different little kid to be her potential "dance partner." (Some were more willing than others--I watched her follow around one big girl for a few minutes, but the girl shook her off every time Evelyn tried to take her hands.) I'm not sure where the kids got their lack of shyness and out-going personalities from, but it definitely wasn't from their parents.

I was inspired by Sarah to try and give Evelyn a fancier "do"--here's today's attempt, with pictures so that Sarah can appreciate my efforts. Andrew, of course, wanted his turn at the a photograph. (I love the funny little half-smile on his face as he surveys himself).

In our final bit of news, our car is *still* not back from the shop. (We're grateful for my mom, who chauffeured us around for a few days, and for Bubby and Poppy, who have graciously loaned us vehicles on occasion so we wouldn't be trapped at home for ten days.) Rumor has it that it will be back tomorrow, but personally, I'm not holding my breath. Yesterday, courtesy of Bubby and Poppy, we made it down south for a trip to the temple (they even watched our kids so we could go together, a rare treat). The temple was nice and the company was good, but it was *hot* and I was grateful to get back to our cooler mountain climes.

Return of the Nap-time Avenger (aka Evelyn wins again)

I'm starting to think that Evelyn's trying to tell me something. Like maybe she doesn't like napping. (Too bad for her--I think naps are vital for toddlers--and their parents!--and, if Andrew is anything to go by, she will be going down for nap time until she's almost four.)

Today was another non-nap day. I could hear Evelyn crying in her room, but I ignored her. (I suppose I had this blissful idea that she *might* go to sleep if I gave her long enough). Finally, I caved (well, it had been over an hour that she'd been awake). When I opened the door to her room, I had an eerie sense of deja vu. It looked almost exactly like her room two days ago: clothes strewn on the floor, empty bed, Evelyn standing diaper-less at one end of her room.

Only this time, things were a little more ominous: the distinctive smell of a dirty diaper pervaded the room. To make things worse, I couldn't immediately tell *where* the diaper was. The diaper by Evelyn's feet was, it turns out, quite clean. (I'm wondering if she tried to put her own diaper on, as this diaper was right by her changing pad and there were distinctive smears on said pad. And on the floor. And on one of her stuffed animals.)

I had to ask Evelyn where the guilty diaper was. Luckily, things weren't quite as bad as I'd feared--she'd hidden the diaper in an empty diaper box. I shooed her out of the room, put away the clothes, cleaned--and sterilized--the dirty spots, and collected the dirty laundry. Evelyn wandered back in, and I told her she needed to stop taking her diapers off during naptime.

In response, she smiled sweetly and chirped something that sounded distinctly like: "You're welcome--mess."

Now she's coloring on herself--and the wall--with markers. (Washable. I think.) So I'd better go.

Let's hope this isn't becoming a pattern!

Evelyn: 1, Naptime: 0

What happens when an enterprising two-year-old chooses not to take her nap? This, apparently.



Not content with simply not sleeping, Evelyn had to get out of bed, take her skirt off, take her diaper off, pee on the floor (in two different spots, apparently!), and then pull out the container under her bed and empty all of the clothes onto the floor . . . urgh. As if I didn't already have enough laundry to do today!

If you could hie to Kolob

We didn't "hie" or anything (well, we didn't fly), but we did go to Kolob this weekend. Since this weekend was free national parks day, we decided to take advantage of proximity to check out Kolob, part of the Zion National Park. It was hot, but quite lovely. And the kids were troopers--Evelyn had to be carried part of the way, but Andrew managed the entire hike (all one mile of it--but since it was a hike, it felt much longer than that) under his own steam and--more importantly--without complaining.


For book group this past month (we met this last week to discuss), we read Edward Abbeys Desert Solitaire, in which he describes his summer spent as a ranger in Arches, back before tourists really discovered the park. As part of his diatribe about the need to preserve the wilderness, he railed on the perceived need to put paved roads into the parks, arguing that universal accessibility shouldn't be the aim of the park systems. It was hard not to drive on the paved roads up to the start of our trail and not think of Abbey's prophetic vision (one of the other book club attendees described his book as a jeremiad--a kind of railing against the fallen state of a civilization with great promise--a description that I think is rather apt). On the other hand, yesterday I was quite grateful for those paved trails, since we would never have been able to experience the glorious view without them--at least not for another ten years, until our kids were old enough to hike in. And I also have to admit that, while much of Abbey annoyed me (his narrative persona I found to be somewhat arrogant and too overtly masculine for my taste), his vivid landscape descriptions did help me appreciate the specificity of what I was seeing.

That evening, we met a friend from our grad school days at the Pastry Pub downtown, before heading to campus for the green show (which they perform nightly during the summer before evening plays). The kids loved it--the green show, that is, not necessarily the food (which they sort of picked at). Evelyn bobbed up and down in time to the music, and Andrew danced wildly (I was half afraid the whole time that he would step on someone sitting near us). Dan said (borrowing from Seinfeld) that he looked like a "full body dry heave."

In other news for the week, Andrew one night insisted on wearing the new nightgown I'd found (on clearance, of course) for Evelyn. I guess he felt left out, or something. The nightgown was a little on the small side (it only cleared his bum by an inch or two), but he sure thought he was something special when we let him wear it. (Let it be said that his father wasn't very happy about this, but he let it go. He hasn't asked for it since, so I think he just wanted to try it out.) But I wonder what he'll think in ten or twelve years when we whip this photo out for friends?


Lest anyone worry that we're encouraging Andrew to get *too* much in touch with his feminine side (although I have to say that honestly I think that's a silly thing to worry about at his age), this week did also mark Andrew's very first soccer game. (We're lucky his coach called that day, or we'd have missed it--in all the drama of our car--it's been in the shop for the last four days, getting the transmission rebuilt.)

And I have to say, at the risk of sounding like a doting mother, that Andrew did better than I'd expected. For one thing, he was the tallest kid on his team, and as tall as the tallest kid on the opposing team, which I think gave him a little bit of an advantage. But he was certainly the MVP of his team--he scored the most goals of anyone on his team (three, I think, but it might have been four), and as many goals as the other team combined. (Of course, they're four, so their technique isn't very developed). He does, however, need to learn about teamwork--at this age, and this stage (their first game, for most of them), most of the kids seemed to think that the aim was to get the ball (regardless of who has it, team mate or foe) and kick it in the goal box. Of course, that's partly right, but I'm hoping that Andrew will eventually learn to pass the ball to his teammates instead of steal the ball from them . . .


And that pretty much sums up our week. We've been walking a lot because, as I mentioned briefly, our car is in the shop. (And we only have the one car.) At the beginning of the week, we had the transmission checked out to try and identify the source of an odd high pitched whine. When we got the quote back, we were a little staggered by it, so we got a second opinion--which was even higher! So we called around to get a few more quotes, opted to go back to the first place, and now we're getting a new (well, rebuilt) transmission. On the plus side, at least we won't have to worry about the transmission for quite some time. On the down side, this is going to cost a lot of money, and it's kind of a pain to lack ready transportation (Dan's parents have been great about letting us borrow a vehicle as needed).

Faculty meetings start this week, the signal that our long summer is (sadly) over.

Always expect the unexpected

Many of our readers already know that we spent last week up at Brian Head (in southern Utah) for the Clarke family reunion. This year happened to be the 50th year of the reunion (it was started by Dan's great-grandparents). Since my family is not as big on attending reunions, I was impressed with both the size and the neat execution (thanks for that largely due to Robert and Trisha and Dan's Uncle Phil, who were the primary organizers). Of course, I never did get all the different family lines disentangled, even though we were there for five days. I'm not going to give a full re-cap of the reunion, mostly because Robert has already given such a nice recap here.

The kids enjoyed the reunion--they had unlimited access to cousins. Andrew and Katie played together, as usual--but for the first time, Evelyn and Lydia seemed to really cement a nice little friendship. It probably helped that Evelyn was so willing to go along with anything Lydia wanted to do. Our week involved lots of playing, swimming, eating, and trying to keep the kids from driving us crazy.

For me, the highlight of the week was the geologic tour of Cedar Mountain that Robert led us on (there are some perks to having a professional geologist in the family).

Our first stop was Brian Head Peak. The day was so clear that you could see for literally hundreds of miles--to a point past Bryce Canyon, a good hour plus drive to the east. Here, we could see the mines west of Cedar City in the distance behind the kids. (I have to confess that this particular stop was also a little nerve wracking, since beyond the little hut built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 30s, there were no railings of any sort, and I was worried about the kids wandering too close to the edge).

We also stopped at Navajo lake, which was formed when a lava flow dammed up one end of a local creek. Our entourage was pretty impressive--you can't see the full extent here, but there were probably some 40+ people in 14 or so vehicles following along behind us (Andrew, Evelyn and I got to ride with the tour guide).

Robert also showed us the inside of this old crater--but I missed most of the discussion since Evelyn had fallen asleep in the car and I couldn't leave her.

After lunch, we hiked out to Cascade springs. Robert reported that everyone made it on their own steam, which was *almost* true. Sarah carried Maggie (of course), and I wound up carrying Evelyn most of the way, since the trail was fairly narrow and Evelyn's preferred mode of locomotion (holding Lydia's hand) wasn't entirely safe.

Here's the actual falls.

By the end of the day we were all tired, a little sunburnt (well, I was anyway), and hungry--but overall I think we all enjoyed it.

Of necessity, we put the kids together on the fold-out bed in our hotel room. They slept surprisingly well there (I was worried they would wake each other up). In fact, I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of the kids snuggling up to each other in their sleep.



Of course, not everything that happened at the reunion was positive--or went according to plan. This is typical of any large gathering, but for us, the events of the week went beyond the expected sorts of trivial difficulties. Monday evening, while driving up the mountain in the rain, we ran over a large rock in the road. It was immediately clear that something was not right--aside from the awful rending, crunching, and popping noise of the impact, our car made some agonizing groaning noises the rest of the way up the hill. Dan consulted one of the more automotive-ly inclined family members, and we decided to have the car towed.

Our insurance company helped hook us up with a rental car, and a few days later the report came in: the car was essentially totaled (it would cost almost as much to fix the car as the car was worth). I have to admit, I was sorrier to hear this than I would have thought (and not just because of the inconvenience of having to replace the car on short notice--we only have, er, had the one car). It was the first car that we purchased together--the first car that was really *ours,* and I'd fallen in love with it when we took it for a test-drive some five years ago. And I wasn't the only one--when I told Andrew we'd have to get rid of the car, he got all teary-eyed and said, "But I loved that car!" Me too, buddy.

We lucked out, though, and managed to find a used mini-van locally towards the end of the week. So we are no longer car-less, and we're learning to love our new car. (Andrew was sold when he saw that it came with a DVD player.) All things considered, I feel like we were blessed in many ways--that no one was hurt, that we'd just received our tax return a few weeks earlier (long story) so we had enough money to pay for the new (used) car in full, that we had family around to help us out, and that we were able to find a replacement so quickly (and for roughly the price we'd hoped to pay).

After the adventures of the week, I dragged everyone up north for my 15th High School reunion. The reunion itself was smaller than I'd expected, but it was fun to see some people I hadn't seen for years (and strange to try and reimagine all of us as parents, which most of us are at this point). It was also a little humbling--I think I had this idea in my mind that I'd go and "show off" a little bit (I mean, here I am with two cute kids, a great husband--and a PhD). But no one actually seemed to care, and only one person even asked me about my degree (and that only indirectly, as in, what was my degree in). I suppose I really am too old to worry about impressing my high school classmates, since for most of them their impressions of me were cemented long ago (if they had any impressions at all).


While I was home, my mom unearthed a couple of bags of "stuff" from my childhood. Among other things, she found some of my childhood crafts, and I thought I'd share a few. I remember spending hours creating things (sometimes now I wonder what happened to that creative impulse). In particular, I spent a considerable amount of time making cloth dolls when I was around 12. I sewed everything on by hand--the facial features, the hair, the bodies. And I made all of the clothes (also hand-stitched, by my own design). They won't win any awards (they're not very attractive), but it was a fun reminder of my childhood.

Promissory Note

I guess I'm defaulting a little on my weekly post--today has been a little crazy (and promises to be more so) as we gear up for a week with relatives (none of whom are blood relatives for me, except for my kids). So no pictures. And likely a short post.

We have had a nice week--the kids have been doing swim lessons this week. Andrew has had actual lessons (and I *think* he's finally learning to listen to his teacher--the first day or so he got so excited being at the pool that he forgot to wait until his teacher was ready before jumping into the pool). Evelyn is just doing the parent/tot class with me. But we're learning a few floating techniques. Andrew even got to jump off the diving board! Well, sort of. For novices like him, the teachers will often walk them to the end of the board and then lower them at least part-way to the water, where another teacher/life guard waits to catch them. The first time, Andrew's teacher lowered him half-way, then dropped him. The second time, his teacher walked to the end of the board with him, then Andrew jumped by himself. The third time, Andrew strode confidently out on the board, slowed down, and stopped completely about a foot or two from the end of the board. Then he carefully lowered himself to all fours, and backed up the length of the board! (One of the teachers rescued him, and walked him out to the end of the board, where he did jump). He claims to like it, but apparently he's not ready for solo jumping yet!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to our neighbor's baptism. We've become good friends with her family; her dad is in the English department on campus, I get to hang out with her mom sometimes, and her little brother is a good friend of Andrew's. As for Zoe herself? Well, I think Evelyn has adopted her. They're really cute together, since Zoe is protective and Evelyn thinks Zoe is about the greatest thing since sliced bread. Her baptism was lovely--simple, sincere, everything a baptism should be. I think this was Evelyn's first time seeing a baptism--I'm glad it was for someone she likes so well.

In other news--I don't know if any of you remember my post some months back about my lingering social wall-flower-ness? No? I didn't think so. Well, you can read it here, if you really want to. You'll notice at the end of the post that I mentioned the ladies at Segullah as one particular community that I wished I could join, but wasn't quite cool enough to? Apparently, feeling ostracized can be as much about individual perception as actual reality, since last week I got an email from one of the main editors at Segullah asking if I wanted to be on their staff . . . (It helps to have a friend who's already on staff who can recommend you as a possibility when they start looking to flesh out their ranks). So, apparently, I get to be cool now. :) (I said yes, in case you were wondering.)