Summer's End

Now that the university has started and the weather is cooling down, summer feels officially over. This is both good and bad. It's nice to have a routine again, but I do miss these kids sometimes. So does Oliver, who perpetually asks where everyone is. ("Where Adrew? Where Ev-yn? Where Daddy?) And he always is super excited to see them again.

 

Here are the long delayed first day of school pictures (Dan took these, by the way, so he deserves any credit and/or blame). You can tell how excited Andrew was. That nice tan he had from California is already starting to fade.



 

School being back in session means that the kids are back in soccer too. Andrew's coaches are a very  nice Polynesian couple. Evelyn doesn't have a uniform yet and, since her goal usually seems to be to sit out as often as possible, I'm not sure *why* she wanted to do soccer again . . .

Oliver and I spend our time at home or out running errands. We're still adjusting to the toddler bed. We switched him out because he'd spent several nights up for hours on end hanging on the crib bars--but being out of the crib hasn't noticeably reduced his stubbornness. We got through this week by having someone (usually me) sleep on the floor by his bed when he woke up, hoping that would help him adjust and he wouldn't need us.

No such luck.

So we're taking advantage of the long weekend to sleep train him. I guess I underestimated his stubbornness. Friday night, he woke up at 1:30 a.m. and discovered that he couldn't get out of his room. We expected that he'd cry for a while. We did *not* expect that he would cry on and off until 6 a.m. (He might have fallen asleep for 40 minutes between 4 and 5--we're both a little hazy on that point). But he was definitely awake for most of the time. At least last night was better. He cried from 10-12, and then again for a little while at 4, but at least he got back into his bed this time. (I could tell from the  monitor that on Friday he was out of his bed from 1:30 on . . .) This is definitely one of my least favorite parts of parenting--I just have to keep reminding myself that we're letting him learn to go to sleep on his own.

Good thing he's cute.

Yesterday we spent some time helping our neighbors pick their overloaded peach tree. We figured we took home about 400 peaches (picked more than that) and that was only about a third of the total (we've promised to bring some back once we can them). I'm glad we were able to help, since later that day my friend had a folding chair collapse on her while she was picking apples and broke her hand.

Anyway, now our basement smells like peaches since they're spread out on all available surfaces while we wait for them to finish ripening (probably just a few more days). Today, Oliver came upstairs with one peach in his hand and another speared on the end of a fork (who knows where he picked that up from), so clearly  he approves. Also, clearly we need to keep the door downstairs shut more often.

One other aside from this week. I'm teaching an online course this semester. Previously, the online course was taught by a professor who has since moved to another university in the state, but for some reason he'd been added to my course management system (as a teacher!). I didn't realize that until I was looking at the list of people enrolled in the class and saw his name--and then saw that he'd spent 2.5 hours in the system, more than double what most of my students had spent online to that point. Needless to say, I was a little weirded out by that (why would you spend that much time looking around a class you were no longer teaching?) and asked to have him removed. I'm still trying to figure out what was going on.

I almost forgot--this was the week of Shakespeare plays! I saw Twelfth Night with my book group on Wednesday, and then we were able to get free tickets from the university for Measure for Measure and Comedy of Errors. The former was unexpectedly serious (still not sure I like it, though it was well done), the latter was quite funny but fluffy (though Dan didn't find it so). Twelfth Night probably strikes the best balance of the three.

Back to School

My apologies for the lack of pictures--we do have them, but our computer died sometime yesterday so I don't have a reliable way to upload them.

In other news, the kids are back in school full time now. The adjustment to first was a bit hard for Evelyn who was weepy at dinner for the first couple of days (just tired), but she seems to be fine now. Oliver has had the hardest time--he keeps asking where everyone is and wanting to see (and then see again) pictures of Andrew and Evelyn.

Dan and I both had meetings at the college this past week. (They were meetings. Enough said).

We also finally made plum jam out of our plums. The ones in the fridge faired pretty well while we were gone--the ones downstairs in the root celler not so well. Unless your preference is for slightly moldy, *definitely* fermenting (lots of liquid) plums. We still managed to get 14 pints from what we had. I also tried making a plum cobbler. It looked lovely, but it was so tart (even with a cup + of sugar) that it was nearly inedible.

This has also been the week that Oliver has refused to sleep. I'm not sure if he's still adjusting from our trip, where he got to sleep with us, but in the past week he has several times refused to sleep for hours at a time. This morning he woke up at 3 and though we diligently ignored him so he won't keep waking up in search of our company, he stayed awake until 6 when the other kids started getting up. I think his crib might be part of the problem--he hangs on the side and uses that to prop himself upright even when he's so tired he's falling asleep standing up (and then, of course, wakes himself up again). Since we're already not getting sleep, we've decided to try switching to the toddler bed now (at least then he can't prop himself up).

Wish us luck.

vacationing

We've spent most of the last two weeks out of town, hence the lack of posts (I don't like posting when I'm out of town--not just because I'm on vacation, but for security reasons. I know. I'm weird.)

(This picture has nothing to do with vacation--this is a shot of the converted trailers we slept in at girl's camp, now that I've finally downloaded my pictures.)

Two weeks ago, while Dan took a flight to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a conference, I took the kids up north to stay with Grandma. (Much more fun to play with cousins than to be the single parent).

We got to celebrate my mom's birthday--and Dan's, and my niece and nephew's--that first Saturday, before Dan left.

We went to the museum of Natural Curiosity (after waiting in a forty minute line)--the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Especially Oliver, who got to play with water, climb around on blocks, and then get soaking wet outside (had I realized there was an outdoor water component, I might have come better prepared).

My mom also got us tickets to see the Ogden Temple Open house, so on Wednesday we left Oliver with my dad and drove up with my brother's three oldest girls. We took a slight detour to see the Ogden Eccles Dinosaur park--the life size dino statues were neat, and the kids loved it, but my mom and I were a little underwhelmed.

The temple, however, was amazing. It was fun to watch the girls (esp. Justin's oldest two) get a bit starry eyed in the bride's dressing room. And the celestial room was exquisite. I am glad, though, that I didn't have to chase Oliver through the temple, as I think it might have ruined the spirit there a bit.

Thursday, we drove back home (with Sarah's two oldest girls in tow--we seemed to have a thing for ferrying nieces that week). We were home less than twenty-four hours, essentially enough time to wash some clothes and pack up again.

And pick a few peaches from our plum tree.

Then we drove to San Diego.

The kids have been looking forward to it all summer. I was both looking forward to it and dreading it--I knew we were going to spend a lot of time at the beach and I had nightmares about spending my week rescuing Oliver from the ocean. (Come to think of it, the day after we got home I had a nightmare in which Oliver was first almost drowned and then almost smothered when his siblings buried him in sand. I suppose my subconscious was still recovering!)

But it turned out even better than I'd hoped.

We arrived a day before Dan's family and spent Saturday morning at the San Diego Safari park. It was fairly busy, but we did get to ride on the safari tram around some of the wildlife enclosures and saw a baby rhino. It was adorable--but at one month, it outweighed my eight-year-old!

 Who is this monkey, anyway?

Oliver started off loving the tram, but after twenty minutes, he wanted out and we spent the last part of the ride holding on to legs, sleeves, etc. to try and keep him in the cart. We also saw some tigers and condors, both pretty neat, though by this time Oliver was getting tired and was not impressed with anything that required him to sit in the stroller (until the very end, when he nearly fell asleep in said stroller).

That evening, we took the kids to the ocean. Unfortunately, we hadn't planned on actually getting *in* the water, so we returned back to the hotel with three very wet children. They splashed in the surf, played in the sand, and, in Oliver's case, got knocked over by the waves more times than I can count. I left that night envisioning a very long trip rescuing Oliver repeatedly from the ocean. (Luckily, the next day he got knocked over by a particularly big, cold wave and decided he didn't love the water *that* much.)

Sunday was a quiet day. We went to sacrament meeting and then took the kids to an aquarium, where the highlight for the big kids was getting to touch an actual shark. Sarah arrived that afternoon, so we hung out with them for a while and had a nice dinner at the condo with Bubby and Poppy.

The real playing began Monday morning--once more at the beach.

Sarah borrowed boogie boards from her brother-in-law and they were the hit of the vacation, particularly with the older kids (Jake, Katie, Andrew, and Lydia). And, surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed them too. I don't have any pictures of me on the boards (maybe Sarah will share some of hers), but riding the surf onto the beach was pretty exhilarating.

 Evelyn loved it too--until she got swamped by a wave and decided she liked playing in the sand better. (check out her face in the second picture below).

  Oliver and Maggie bonded over the beach. Especially over filling the little watering cans in the ocean and dumping them back on whatever sand creation they were working on.

We also had a round of musical hotels--two nights each in three different hotels. Our last hotel was right on the harbor, near where a pair of sea lions appear to have taken up residence. (Our last night in Oceanside, we were awakened several times by a chorus of art-art-art as the sea lions were joined by another pair or two. I didn't mind it as much as I normally would have, because there's something kind of romantic about being kept awake by sea lions).

Oliver playing frisbee with his daddy on the beach.

In between turns at the beach, we went swimming, we ate fish tacos (really, they're delicious, and this is from someone who's pretty meh about fish), we ate ice cream, we played games, and generally enjoyed not having any real responsibilities.

We were supposed to come back on Thursday (not incidentally, the kids' first day of school, but something we did not realize until well after planning the vacation and scheduling our hotels), but no one wanted to leave.

So we threw in one last hurrah, at Legoland. I'm glad we went--the kids have been wanting to go, given their new obsession with legos--and I think this is the last time we'll go. The park is perfect for the 6-7 year old range. Evelyn loved it (it was her favorite thing about the vacation; apparently the beach is too sandy). Andrew liked it too, though he's almost too old for the rides. Even Oliver had fun, though he's too young for many of the rides. Hence, a lot of my pictures are of Oliver, because Dan and I had to divide and conquer.

But Evelyn did get to see her beloved Star Wars characters.

So, we had a wonderful time. And now we're home, and trying to recover from the mountains of laundry . . .