I haven't written for a bit. The weather has been uncommonly wet. I know I should be grateful. We definitely live in a desert and any rain is a blessing, but it makes long runs and football practice a lot less enjoyable. Isaac actually had a few practices canceled because of weather. It pretty much rained all week two weeks ago. We were supposedly getting 1/2 a years' allotment of precipitation in that one week. I keep meaning to look it up and see if we did, but I haven't yet. We probably did. We got tons of rain. The kids stood at the back windows watching little rivers and ponds form in the back yard. Then it didn't stop after that week. We would have a few days of sun, then more rain, and more rain. It rained all last night. Very odd.
Jessica: She is loving school and soaking up knowledge like a sponge. Matt and I often catch each other's eye at family scripture reading surprised at the words she doesn't need help with anymore. Her new thing is writing notes. This morning we all had notes. Isaac's said she wanted to play Mario Brothers with him today and have a happy morning. Matt's: "Dear dad I love you a lot and what do you want for becthes (breakfast) to day?" I had a long note about getting hugs and kisses with an accompanying picture. Makenna and she must have had a little tiff this morning because we saw Makenna's note taped to the outside of their bedroom door. "Stop here I am mad at you." Jess is impatient for soccer to start, but loves breaking in her new rollerblades, when it isn't raining.. She bought them with her birthday money. She has lots of new bruises .
Makenna: She was so excited to go to our ward's baptism preview a couple weeks ago. Last Saturday, she went to her good friend's baptism and watched with new interest. Her birthday is next month. I am making a baptism dress for her. She has been offering to read to me a lot more so I will hurry up on her dress. I sew while she reads out loud. She picked out the pattern and colors a month ago. We sent the fabric (expensive sheets from Grandma Huntzinger's connections) to my mom to pleat, and now I am working on the smocking. That is my current time consuming task, but she is making it easier by exclaiming over how fast it's going (it's not really) and how beautiful it is, and how she hopes her daughter can wear it some day. That's how to motivate me! Makenna has decided to start dance again instead of soccer. I need to look into where to do it. I think she needs more of a challenge than the Y can provide.
Isaac: Last night he finished the last requirement for his Arrow of Light! That's the end of cub scouts. I'm not sure he'll even have a ceremony because this is the Blue and Gold month, but he doesn't really care. He doesn't want to skip football practice either. They had 4 practices last week and the same this week. The first game isn't until later in March. It's more expensive than city league soccer, but I guess we're getting our money's worth in time. It's a lot of work and drastically cuts into his social free time, but he loves it. One interesting school thing. He has been doing a chemistry unit in science, but going much more in depth than I ever expected for 5th grade. He has been learning about the periodic table, atomic weight, and balancing chemical equations along with the fun experiments. He wants to do something from the unit for the history and science fair we are doing next month.
Karen: I went on a quick trip to St George for the Painters Half Marathon a couple weekends ago. I went with 3 other friends. We were worried about the weather, and so were the race officials. They emailed everyone the day before deciding to postpone the start by one hour, but it turned out to be a beautiful day. I cut 14 minutes off my time from two years ago. That's not saying I'm awesome now, just that I used to be a lot slower. That run was also the kick off for marathon training. My newish neighbor and friend Wendy is signed up to race in June. That will be her 16th marathon. I'm doing my #3 in May. But for both of us, it's the first time we are training with someone and it is so much more fun than slogging out the miles alone. We're planning on 15 this Saturday. Running has become my hobby and stress relief. School, Enrichment and Padwerx comprise my other duties and eat up a big chunk of my time, but I think it's more fun to write about the running.
Matt: After working 100's of hours over a short amount of time, Matt is home again. Padwerx still has two guys at City Center and Matt is still often on the phone helping remotely, but he's not going in for the next couple weeks. They want the top suites cleared out of tech so they can have rich people stay there for the Super Bowl last weekend and the upcoming Chinese New Year which is apparently a big draw. Matt was hoping to get to some projects around the house, but first had to tackle a proposal for a long term work contract. Wow. There is so much more to running a business than I ever thought of before. If we get this job, my little bookkeeping gig is going to get exponentially more involved. I don't know half of the inner workings of Padwerx, but what I do see makes me so proud of my husband, his vision and what he has been able to accomplish. He'll be heading back to City Center for the last week of February and we'll see after that.
I was going through my church bag yesterday and found this. Jessica's nativity, Christmas 2009.
