Pestilence

This week was fairly quiet.

Dan and I finished classes for the semester. Finals are this week. Sometimes I wonder if students realize that professors are as excited for the end of the semester as they are. I enjoy teaching, but sometimes the grading gets to be a bit much.

Oliver came down with an ear infection *and* pink-eye this week, so we didn't get out much mid-week. Then Evelyn was home sick Thursday (she said her throat hurt), and yesterday she started showing the same pink-eye symptoms as Oliver. Needless to say, they both stayed home from church today.

Friday (when Evelyn said she felt better--here's hoping she didn't just spread germs to her entire class), Oliver and I tried accompanying her class on a fieldtrip to the library and a local tree nursery. It wasn't entirely successful: Oliver wouldn't stay in one place long enough for us to do more than nod at Evelyn from time to time. But the nursery was wonderful: full of growing things and flowers and wonderful smells and I'm actually a bit excited to start our garden next month.

After a mild spring, the week turned cold and blustery again. We've had rain *and* snow today. (Oh, and hail). At least it brings much needed moisture with it.

I'm sure the kids have done funny things this week, but right now it all escapes me.

Evelyn has been writing a story on the computer in her spare time. She's fairly liberal in her use of exclamation points. She wants to know if people will pay her for her book.

Here's an excerpt:

Once upon a time a little girl named Arrow was lost she looked and looked no house no people. But lots of trees. Trees that’s what she saw. So she was walking and walking all day. One day she got a clue to a key. A magic key. It said. Dear Arrow, Come down to the hart tree. I will be there. And a key. She red hmm…what in the world! 50 arrows! Another note! It said. Dear Arrow, All yours. Oh my!  Roar! What! A bear! This is #1 place in…oh my! I will get out of here. And sleep. This looks good to sleep… OK time to sleep. Ah that’s good. Woof! Hu? Oh no a wolf! She ran as fast as she could. Crash! Ouch! Bang! So much pain! Splat! Oh my! Bang! Why this? Oh! A town! After all this! Off she went to get a bow! OK! Now I need a target! For now it is sheep…OK! Hmm? Oh Daydreaming! Bang! Ouch! Crash! Splat! bang!

 

Catching Up

 After weeks without a functioning camera (or the means with which to upload pictures), I'm thrilled to say we have pictures again! Mostly of Oliver, because he can't see a camera without saying, "You take my picture?"

 

 

But, just to recap. Here's Jake, looking dashing at his Eagle Scout Court of honor last Saturday.

Evelyn on Monday just after her penultimate play performance, hamming it up for the camera.

 Slightly farther out, so you can see the flippers she wore for her costume (and Oliver's arm). This is downstairs, where the kids hung out while waiting for their parts.

And . . . that's about it for the catching up pictures.

We're barreling toward the end of the semester, so life is pretty busy. But at least Evelyn's play is done! Fun as it was, it's also a relief not to schedule daily rehearsals into our schedule. Especially this week. The above pictures were taken after Oliver and I left our van at the shop and walked to campus to pick her up.

The previous Thursday, I took the car in to get the oil changed. They mentioned that the rear tires were wearing a little and we might want to get the alignment checked. But they said the front tires looked fine, so I put it out of my head until after our trip up north.

Monday, I took the car in to have the alignment looked at. Oliver and I went to the park, then came back. After an hour and a half, they brought me into the garage to show me that the front tires were worn all the way down to the metal on both sides. (Remember, four days earlier they had been fine!)

Turns out, the alignment and a couple other parts weren't functioning right. They kept the car overnight, replaced a few parts and the tires and we got it back. The upside of older cars? We own our car outright. The downside? Sometimes repairs are expensive. At least it's safe to drive now!

On Thursday, I watched a couple of cute little boys while their mom was substitute teaching. They tore apart the house, but they had fun. (One of them serenaded me with *all* the words to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"). Here's Oliver with puppets instead of gloves and shoes. 

 

We spent yesterday up north again--Dan and I got to listen to Neil Gaiman (!) in Park City. We spent the morning at the Monte L. Bean museum with the kids--and happened to run into my youngest brother and 3 of his 5 kids just as we were leaving. (I hadn't told anyone we were coming up because we weren't going to be in town long). 

 And everyone loves a good "Liger."

Justin brought his kids over in the afternoon and the cousins ran around together until it was time for us to leave. My mom arranged a babysitter for the kids, since she and my dad were at the temple, so we'd asked Andrew to help Oliver go to bed, reasoning that he'd be more responsive to Andrew than the babysitter. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go to plan and Oliver was still awake when my dad got home. He's taken a long nap today to compensate. (I will say, however, that at least he slept through the night, unlike the previous night where I found him in the hallway at 3:30 a.m., reading a book to himself by the light of the hall nightlight.)

Dan and I had a wonderful time. We had a nice Mexican dinner in Park City (with a salsa bar--I was too chicken to try most of the offerings, as they were marked outside of my heat range), then listened to Neil Gaiman tell stories and talk about his writing for nearly two hours. I even ran into several writing friends, including three of my agent sisters!

Afterward, we returned to Provo by way of Salt Lake and met up with Sarah and Aaron for dessert at a swanky place near their house. We were pretty exhausted when we got back to my parents' house (and everyone there was asleep), but it was lovely to have an evening to ourselves.

Soaring with Eagles

(Sorry, I couldn't resist that title . . .)

This has been a busy, but mostly rewarding week.

Highlights included:

Watching Jake get  his Eagle Scout award (hence the title. Dan got to sit in the Eagle's Nest with the other Eagle Scouts. I got to chase Oliver down the hallways. I'll bet you can guess who had a better seat!). So I guess technically, Dan, Evelyn and Andrew watched Jake get his award. I caught glimpses in between. I do know that Robert gave an excellent talk and Jake looked great and Sarah throws a stellar party. (I might have to hire her to help me when Andrew reaches this stage). After the Court of Honor, we trooped outside the church for the nacho bar and cookies that Jake had requested. We didn't get to see as much of the cousins as we'd like to, but we were so glad we could be there to support Jake (and his parents) in a big accomplishment.

*Funny side-note, speaking of cousins: this morning at the fast and testimony meeting we attended, we got to listen to one of Aaron's cousins speak. It's still funny to me that because of marriage connections I'm now (sort of) related to a family I always admired while growing up.

The other big event for the week is still ongoing: Evelyn's play. Really, it feels like it's involved the entire family, as we've arranged our schedules around her practices. This week the performances started, so the play dominated her life. Monday and Tuesday she had dress rehearsals from 4-10 p.m. (not kidding. She was a trooper though). Wednesday and Thursday they had school matinees every morning and another performance in the evening. Friday, just a morning matinee, thank goodness, and tomorrow is the last day!

I got to watch her performances Monday  night during dress rehearsal and then again Wednesday with my parents, who got a real kick out of watching her. I think all three of us laughed until we were crying. She's a froglet, one of the smallest kids in the cast, but she throws her whole heart into her dancing and she clearly is enjoying herself so much it's hard not to enjoy watching her. My favorite moment was when she was supposed to run off stage with the other froglets, but she was enjoying her moment in the spotlight so much she nearly forgot her cue and was a little behind the rest of them. I'm honestly really impressed with the whole production, particularly how well the directors managed to coordinate 60+ kids for a production this size. I'm hoping to get a picture of Evelyn in her costume tomorrow--I don't have one yet, since we're not supposed to take photographs during the performance itself.

The Festival of Excellence. Tuesday, the university cancelled classes in order to host an all-day mini conference where students and faculty presented on a huge range of topics. Since I'm reporting on the Festival for the provost newsletter, I spent the entire day on campus. Dan was also part of the presentations--I wasn't able to go to his, but I hear it went well! It was fun to see so many different disciplines come together, and I was again impressed by the work that went into it. (Not all the presentations were created equal, but I did hear some great ones).

The only downside to the week was the news this evening that a girl I knew growing up in young women just passed away from cancer. I'm heartsick for her family (her youngest is younger than Oliver). Next week, my goal is to try and live more in the moment and just love my kids and husband more.

Easter Sunday

Most of our weekend has been filled with conference--or, more to the point, Dan and I watching conference while the kids wander in and out. But the sessions have been wonderful. Sometimes I forget how much I need the talks until I hear them. This morning's session, especially, has spoken directly to me.

We did a small egg hunt with the kids this morning and it hasn't taken Oliver long at all to figure out what to do with the eggs and his bucket. Dan made blueberry muffins for breakfast (as per Andrew's request), and we're looking forward to an Easter dinner with my in-laws.

This past week was spring break for the kids, which was a little awkward as the university didn't have any sort of break. We still managed to have fun.

Tuesday afternoon we saw Cinderella with Sarah and her family, and Bubby and Poppy. Dan is the only one who wasn't able to come (he had lab). The movie was fine--but unfortunately, Oliver wasn't at all interested. Combine this with the fact that he hadn't napped, and we had a predictable recipe for disaster (I wanted to watch the movie; that's the only reason I can come up with for my foolishness). Luckily, it was discount movie day, so popcorn was only a dollar. We went down to the lobby twice to get popcorn, since eating was the only thing that kept Oliver sort of near his seat. When the popcorn ran out (and I refused to buy a third bag), he started roaming the theater. He managed to make a full circuit of the seats on the floor (no one was sitting there) before I caught him, and when he escaped again, he ran across the theater, climbed the stairs to the back row, and climbed across all the poor people sitting there.

We spent a lot of time in the little aisle by the back door, Oliver running in circles and me trying to catch glimpses of the movie. And while this wasn't fun, it would have been a little more bearable if Oliver hadn't pooped some time during the movie. I didn't have a spare diaper with me (he had already pooped four times that day and I thought--again, foolishly--that we were safe); the theater didn't have one either, so we were waiting out the end. (In retrospect, I should have just taken him home. It would have been much easier!) I didn't realize that he'd also blown out until we emerged from the theater and I found I had poop smeared all over my shirt.

Fortunately, the others seemed to enjoy the movie--especially Lydia, whose birthday it was. After running home to change and collect Dan, we had pizza at the local favorite, Bruno's.

We colored eggs with Sarah's kids on Wednesday by using a method that involved spraying pans with shaving cream, dropping food coloring into the cream, using skewers to mix the colors, and then rolling the eggs into the colors. It created some gorgeous eggs (my camera isn't working, and I still need to get the pictures from Sarah) with not too much mess--though the kids had food coloring stains on their hands for a couple of days and Dan says he can't eat the eggs because they smell (and taste?) like shaving cream. (That hasn't stopped Andrew, however, who apparently likes hard-boiled eggs).

Sarah and Bubby kindly watched all three of my kids while I had class that afternoon; afterward, we had dinner: the adults had ham and funeral potatoes inside; the kids had the same served outside (Jake was on Oliver duty), but in honor of April Fool's day, they had funny implements: poor Lydia only had a teaspoon to eat with; Jake's drink was served in a tiny tupperware container. We tried making April Fool's potstickers, which were fun to make but not terribly convincing. The chocolate dipping sauce was good though!

Thursday was quieter as Sarah and family went down to SG to be with Aaron's family. Friday afternoon, we drove down to the condo and had a nice time just hanging out. While the kids played, Dan and I got to go wander around Arts Fest for a bit. We also had a small egg hunt with candy and eggs we'd brought (Bubby and Poppy filled them while Dan and I were out)--we only had to remove half a dozen dog droppings from the area where we wanted to hide the eggs!

All told, it's been a lovely week.