On Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Miriam, Grandpa, and Darla piled into Grandpa's car to head to the airport. Andrew was their chauffeur.
They made it to London without a hitch...except for the fact that their accommodations fell through.
On Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Miriam, Grandpa, and Darla piled into Grandpa's car to head to the airport. Andrew was their chauffeur.
They made it to London without a hitch...except for the fact that their accommodations fell through.
Benjamin celebrated his birthday at camp this year—along with two other boys. Their camp leaders threw a little party for the three of them, complete with cake and candles. The highlight of Benjamin's time at camp was canoeing on the lake. He's also proud of the fact that they put four kids in a ten-man tent and stuffed ten kids on a two-man canoe—getting all into the stats side of thing.
He was a little bummed that he missed the last swim meet (especially since Zoë did so well and he didn't get any ribbons at Fun Friday...because...well...he didn't swim), but he's excited that he gets to try swimming an IM at this coming meet (that's and "individual medley," where he'll swim butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle).
We opened presents after Fun Friday (so Benjamin is in his swimming suit). Phoebe wanted to have the best seat in the house right beside the birthday boy. And is she still in her pyjamas? Why, yes, she is!
As we suspected Zoë had quite a few ribbons waiting for her at Fun Friday this morning. Uncle Patrick asked if she had robbed the ribbon giver—but, no! These ribbons were all hard-earned!
Well, Phoebe woke up around 3:00 in the morning today.
When it became clear she wasn't going to go back to sleep I let her get up...but made her unload the dishwasher. And then we folded a load of napkins together (she was actually getting quite good at it by the end). And then we did a reading lesson.
At some point she asked if she could go back to bed, but was unsuccessful at falling asleep.
So we got up again and put in a load of laundry.
And then the kids got up for swimming practice, so they all had breakfast together. I made Phoebe play on her own while I did some work and when the kids got home, I went down for a long nap.
Phoebe...did not.
She played in the basement with Alexander and Zoë.
I left for the swim meet early with the kids (and still had to park on the street quite a distance from pool) and got them settled in "the bullpen" and checked in for my volunteer shift—I actually switched shifts with someone else. I was scheduled to be stroke and turn judge for the second half rather than the first half, but I just didn't know that I would have the stamina to make it through the second half (given my track record this week—cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze).
Zoë sang the national anthem (as she has for every meet we've hosted for the past two years—I think she's up to five times now...but she'll probably sing next week as well, bringing her total to six). Considering she's also coming off a cold, I think she did well! That official was so nice (I'm not sure what his name is, but you can see that he tries to step in when Zoë lost her place in the song—and that wasn't the only nice thing he did today, either!)
It's always hard for me to say goodbye to the beach...even though I know that regular-ordinary life is piling up back at home so we need to get back to real life. It's just so beautiful...
Our last beach day was a beautiful one.
When we got to the beach we found that the shallow waters were filled with jellyfish of sorts, so we were a little hesitant about getting into the water. Eventually we caught one and identified it as a brown comb jelly—so not a jellyfish at all. While jellyfish often have stinging tentacles, jellies are typically harmless.
Here's Benjamin holding one:
The kids had their first swim meet of the season this afternoon. It was drizzling when we arrived and soon started a veritable downpour. The chairs that I brought got completely soaked. All the children's towels were drenched. Everything was soggy.
I had Andrew bring an extra canopy for the kids when he came. I should have brought one when we set out, but ran out of time to grab it. Next time we'll be better prepared. It would probably be good to set up the canopies when it's sunny outside as well, truth be told, so it's good we dug them out.
Here's Alexander doing his warm up (he's adjusting his goggles—you can see "A Heiss" on his back):
Zoë woke up early on Friday morning and convinced Grandpa and Darla to take her and Alexander to play pickle ball. So by the time I saw her she already felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
After breakfast we headed down to the beach, where we found so many creatures. Brown comb jellies, sand fleas, clams, fish, crabs...animals were everywhere.
Here's Zoë pretending to pop a clam into her mouth:
I hardly took any pictures this day. When I got up, Phoebe was already wide awake, watching video montages on a phone. Sunrise was at around 5:45 every morning, so the day was already bright and well under way by the time we were getting up.
Andrew didn't actually have to work on Wednesday, so he came to the beach with us in the morning for a quick splash in the gulf before playing tourists. It was another red flag day and the waves were just right for boogie boarding again.
Here's Phoebe enjoying some snuggle time with Daddy (she sure likes being held):
The water was much choppier on Tuesday, which made it perfect for boogie boarding (but less perfect for Phoebe, who has given everyone a real arm workout this trip). Here you can see Phoebe in Grandpa's arms, along with all the kids (except for Alexander) and Darla:
We went in to St. Andrew's yesterday to visit the Panama City Publishing Company Museum (which was fantastic, by the way), but we arrived a little bit early so we did a little self-guided walking tour to see the Oaks By The Bay park and to look at the marina and things.
On the boardwalk just behind the park, Phoebe spotted a baby (doll) that had been left by the garbage can.
"I need to rescue that baby!" she said. "Can someone help me to rescue that poor garbage baby?"
Benjamin went to pull it out of the weeds. It was a little waterlogged but otherwise in pretty good shape.
Phoebe is always so happy when Daddy finishes his meetings (teaching classes is what he's mainly doing) and joins us at the beach. Look at her grin when she gets in his arms!
I've decided that I'll upload videos later since there are a few more steps to that and I...miss my desktop setup. So for now pictures will have to do.
We spent the entire day at the beach on Monday. Grandpa and Darla headed out to the beach with the littler ones as soon as they got up in the morning—which was quite early because the sun rises at 5:45 am (and not until 6:30 in Atlanta). The sunset feels early as well. And I'm still trying to figure out the tides because...what is happening tomorrow? Some kind of reset button or something?
Here are the tides for Panama City Beach:
Look how small the difference is between the high and low tide! We have hardly been able to notice when (and whether) the tide is changing—it only comes in/out 2 feet over the course of the entire day!
We left for our trip quite uneventfully. Alexander and Zoë rode with Grandpa and Darla. Our van was quiet with the rest of the kids in there. We listened to Hamilton until Columbus, where we stopped at the Infantry Museum (which has been declared America's #1 Free Museum for several years in a row). It was a pretty good stop to make, especially on such a rainy day—we had plenty of space to stretch our legs inside and by the time we were ready for our picnic lunch things had dried up a bit.
Phoebe and I were snuggling in bed the other morning and I decided to ask her about her favourite things. Just to make conversation.
"What's your favourite colour?" I asked.
"Umm...all of them!" she said.
"I feel that," I said...because she seems to have inherited my own dis/satisfaction with everything in the world. I simply don't understand how to choose a favourite colour. That feels like too big of a commitment. I admit to feeling drawn to certain colours of certain items at times, but I don't feel like I often seek out specific colours for things...if that makes sense. All colours are beautiful.
"What's your favourite animal?" I asked next.
"Ooooh! Dood question...all of them!" she said.
"All of them?" I asked.
"All of them—dogs, cats, horses, giraffes, lions. Just all of them."
"So what about spiders?"
"Not spiders! I do not like spi...well...nice spiders. I still like nice spiders."
"And snakes?"
"If they're nice."
"So you just like animals in general?"
"Yup. Hey, Mom—you know, like November, January, February, April, June, May, July and August?"
"The twelve months of the year? Yes, I'm familiar. Should we sing them?"
"Yes. But first, what's your favourite schedule?"
Something else that has been taking up a fair bit of my time lately has been getting all our paperwork in order to apply for proof of citizenship in Canada for the kids. They've all been citizens since birth...I've simply never registered their births with the government...if that makes sense. So they are Canadian by right...but had no evidence of it.
It was not unlike the process we had to go through to get Miriam her American citizenship of birth abroad record. She was never not American, but she doesn't have an American birth certificate. She has a record of birth abroad. Her birth certificate is Egyptian. But she doesn't have Egyptian citizenship.
I submitted her birth abroad certificate when I applied for Canadian citizenship, but that didn't count. I had to send in her Egyptian birth certificate (along with a translation...and an affidavit from the translator...who was Andrew). It worked out fine.
Other than that we had to provide:
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All the important information is on the back of the certificate (sorry, scammers) |
To say nothing of Andrew's work schedule (which doesn't always populate on my calendar), today...
It's not unusual to see some swimming regression in young children at the start of the swim season. Typically I've made my kids pass a little "swim test" before I unleash them in the pool, but with a season of competitive swimming under their belts, I wasn't too worried about Benjamin, Zoë, or Alexander this year. In fact, I told Benjamin that he's 100% in my worry-free zone (along with Rachel, Miriam, and honestly Zoë). Alexander was a bit of a grey zone for me, but he jumped in the pool and started swimming like a champ so I think he's fully confident.
Phoebe, on the other hand, who has been asking "When's it gonna be May?" and begging to go to the pool since the beginning of October (the pool closes at the end of September), was a little less confident when she dipped her toes into the chilly water earlier this month.
And then we had a spate of unseasonably cold weather that prevented us from going to the pool at all...so we've only been to the pool three times this month (maybe four)!
The first day Phoebe would hardly do anything. Yesterday she saw some of her little friends from co-op (who are a bit older than her) doing things like bobbing under water to look at each other and they invited her to join in their game...and she did! They'd count out—1, 2, 3!—and then all the little girls would go under water, blow some bubbles, and bounce back up to yammer about how good they all were at holding their breath. It was cute and really helped Phoebe feel brave again.
Today she declared that she "can swim now!"
And she's really doing pretty well—she even held a back float for a few seconds!
Yesterday we were going around the table, asking the kids what they'd learned in church that day. Phoebe was first. And sometimes (like yesterday) she's just not in the mood for discussion.
"What did you learn at church today?" I asked.
"I dunno. You tell me," she retorted.
"I can't tell you what you learned, because I don't know what you didn't know before. Only you know that."
She eventually told us that they played a game in class, but she doesn't know the name of the game or how the game goes. And she didn't want to mention a favourite part of the day, either. So...we moved along to Alexander...
Phoebe had some iPad time while I was taking a nap after church. Technically Daddy ended up having a nap after church as well (only he napped on the couch).
She took many, many pictures of the carpet before deciding that she was a better subject—not in a vain way, I'm sure, but in an artistic, self-exploratory sense. Probably.
Her curls...still smite me...
Turns out graduating is pretty low key when you're a homeschooler.
While Andrew was in his meeting on Monday afternoon I walked the kids up the street from my building to the natural history museum (after sending Rachel outside to wait with the other kids while Zoë helped me in the book room for a little while).
It's a pocket (of a) museum—a tiny little space—but the kids had a good time and learned some things.
Zoë and Alexander did the little scavenger hunt they have for kids:
This afternoon Phoebe was recounting our trip to campus...
"Yesterday our whole entire family went to Mommy's campus and there we saw an amount of bugs!"
Seminary graduation was held early this year—May 4th!
The girls have been attending seminary in the Roswell Stake. We're in Lilburn Stake, but are geographically closer to a lot of buildings within the Roswell Stake than we are to buildings in the Lilburn Stake and when it comes to early morning seminary, commute time matters. Plus, these seminary kids were kids that we met when we first moved here (before we were split off of their ward and then off of their stake), so...anyway...
Last year was the first year Rachel and Miriam attended in-person seminary. Grandpa was their teacher, along with Brother Moser—who is being released at the end of this year after four years of teaching early morning seminary. This year it was Brother Moser and...someone else.
Here's Rachel with Rachael:
On Saturday night the girls had (almost) all the young women in the ward over to play games. It was a little difficult for Benjamin to be excluded (but if he wants to plan a games night with the young men, he's more than welcome to do that). Rachel and Miriam have just felt like the younger young women were in need of some...fellowshipping...so that guided their invite list.
We had a big storm that evening.
Phoebe woke up when most of the girls were leaving (and so many other times—she hardly slept that whole night, I feel like, so the night's events were even more of a surprise to Andrew and I, the guardians of the night, who took turns putting her back to bed and putting her back to bed and putting her back to bed).
Anyway, Phoebe woke up when the girls came up to the entry way to put on their shoes.
"Goodness gracious!" she whispered to me from her bed. "They are going outside right now?! In a thunderstorm!!"
"Well," I explained. "Yes, but only because they're going home. Their moms and dads have come to pick them up so they're just...running from our house to their cars really quick. They're not going out to play."
"Okay, good!" Phoebe said. "Because that would not be safe.
It was very thundery on Saturday night. And Phoebe, as I mentioned, had an awful time sleeping.
Getting up for church on Sunday morning was a real drag, especially because I woke up earlier than my alarm when I heard the power shut off. I checked the area to see if there was a power outage, but nothing was mentioned, and soon enough the power came back on.
We got ready for church and headed out the door.
Our neighbour texted me just before I went in to primary to tell me that Filthy (Fil) the Clown's house had burned down! She had driven past on her way to mass.
Evidently, Andrew and his phase of church-goers (the prelude players) had seen firetrucks and things.
My phase of church-goers (the stragglers) really didn't. Or at least I didn't. My passengers report seeing a few vehicles.
We drove home that way on our way home from church and were shocked—shocked, shocked, shocked! It was so much worse than I imagined. There's just...nothing left inside.
Once upon a time (within the last year) we were driving to Grandpa and Darla's house when Phoebe excitedly squealed, "Ooooh! Lookit that parking lot!"
We were, at that moment in time, driving by the parking lot of a golf course. It wasn't the most exciting thing should could have pointed out, but we have enjoyed sporadically pointing out parking lots to each other ever since.
*****
Today we had a BLFA (big long family adventure), which culminated with a trip to campus so that Daddy could use my office for a meeting that he couldn't miss and for me to meet with one of my professors.
Soon after we crossed the street from the parking lot (!!!) Phoebe gushed, "Oh, yay! Dumpsters!"
"Dumthurth" not being on my mind, I wasn't quite sure what she had said, so I asked her to repeat herself.
"Dumthurth!" she said, pointing. "Look!"
*****
All that is to say, I suppose, that life itself is such a wild adventure for little kids. You don't have to concoct wild, magical adventures...though those can be nice as well, sometimes. You just need parking lots and dumpsters.
And hopefully some ladybugs and cool leaves, too.
On Wednesday morning we finished reading our last school novel for the year, and a few of the kids had to finish up some lessons, and I had to do some work on a few projects...but Phoebe also wanted to know if I would read a story to her in her little tent.
After field day, a friend took us into the woods to show us where the much-raved-about rope swing is. We've gone walking in these woods before but have never found the rope swing...for whatever reason. I'm honestly not sure why. But here it is in all its glory:
Today I was reading Can You Dance Like a Peacock? with Phoebe and she got really excited about the flamingo page.
"Can we get some flamingos at the store?" she asked.
"I...don't know...that you can really get flamingos at the store...?" I said.
"You can!"
"Where?"
"Just at the store! They have them! But not usually pink flamingos."
"Yeah, see...I didn't think they had pink flamingos at the store."
"They have yellow flamingos. Can we get those?"
"Yellow flamingos?"
"Yes! I love them!"
Me: It's math hour. And I need to finish writing a paper. You guys need to be focused on your work right now so I can focus on mine.
Also me: I wonder if we can fashion a maypole out of items we have in our house...
We had to be at church early last Sunday to rehearse for the Easter program, which went well. The primary children sang, and then the young women sang a piece Miriam selected and which they learned all on their own, and then the ward choir sang a few pieces as well.
Miriam stayed to play the organ for the Spanish ward. Rachel stayed to drive her.
Then when she got home we had to leave for Grandpa and Darla's for Easter dinner, which was lovely. But we didn't get home until it was nearing bedtime. And the Easter Bunny had not stopped by yet.
Our children were incredibly patient about this. They hardly asked when or whether the Easter Bunny was going to come. Benjamin and Zoë did drop some hints about their expectations, like, "Gee...if we took the little kids down to the basement to play for an hour do you think the Easter Bunny might how up thing?" But they were very mature when I turned down their "offer," reminding them that their older sisters weren't at home and the Easter Bunny probably wouldn't drop by when it thought it might get caught by children coming home.
Anyway, Rachel was in charge of dessert for Easter dinner and she needed to put some frosting on the carrot cake after she got home from church (which took her forever...wink, wink), but the kids were already getting anxious to leave for Grandpa and Darla's, so we told them to each grab a book and head out to get buckled in the van. They did. And then they waited while Rachel first iced one cake, which Andrew brought out to the van, grumbling about how long Rachel was taking in the kitchen. And then Rachel got the other cake ready (she'd also made a lemon-glazed vanilla dessert). And then we finally, finally got in the car to head to Grandpa and Darla's.
We ate, we visited, we played some catching games in the backyard...and then we headed home and...the kids were so surprised to find that the Easter Bunny had come! Phoebe thought it was magical while Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander were perplexed about how we managed to pull off a surprise like this.
I am not a very surprising person, it seems, so this was a smashing success.
I had to go to campus again today on a two-fold mission: (1) to attend the awards luncheon for my program (I didn't win anything this year...but they wanted people to come support those that did), and (2) to pick up the poster I had printed for a conference on Tuesday.
The awards luncheon was at the Botanical Gardens and...wow!
I mean, we've seen the signs but we just...never knew. It's like Duke Gardens...but better somehow? Except that it's not connected to campus directly so it's a little less accessible. But it's pretty awesome.
They have beautiful plants...
Yesterday Phoebe wanted to go to the park, but it was too wet for that. In the afternoon when we went for a walk, however, there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky.
"It's a rainbow for real life," Phoebe told us.
One of my earliest memories—or perhaps one of my earliest memory of a memory—is attending a horticulture class at BYU with my mom.
What I remember remembering is that I was sitting under a desk eating Froot Loops from a little cup. The classroom was dark, except for a screen at the front, which was showing slide projections of various plants.
That's it. That's the memory.
After verifying this memory with my mom, I learned that I would have been about two years old when that memory occurred. The teacher of the class was Dr. St. Clair (who I would later work for in the Integrative Biology (or "InBio" as it was then called) department shortly after Andrew and I got married).
I wonder why that memory stuck with me so firmly through all the many years that it did—and the feeling of the memory as well...just of...feeling content and safe.
And I wonder what memories my children will take with them moving forward.
Will Phoebe remember getting to come to campus with me today? She was terribly excited to get to come...only to be required to be still and quiet. She played with her felt boards and drew on her drawing pad quite happily through most of the poetry readings.
Eggs. Boy, I dunno...
They're about $6 per dozen right now. We boiled 25 eggs for Easter this year, so it cost us about $12 for an afternoon of family fun—and that included dinner! Not too bad.
Do I wish eggs were cheaper? Certainly.
But I also think there are bigger fish frying here and that in spite of—*waves hands vaguely*—all this it's good to be together, it's good to enjoy each other. I got to read some of Delores Williams' Sisters in the Wilderness over the Easter weekend and particularly enjoyed this passage: "the text [scriptures] suggest that the spirit of God in Jesus came to show humans life—to show redemption through a perfect ministerial vision of righting relations between body (individual and community), mind (of humans and of tradition) and spirit" (p. 146).
Righting relations. What a beautiful summary of everything the Saviour asks us to do—to love others, to mourn with those that mourn, to find what was lost, to just...go about doing good...to make things right. That's it. That's the message.
I'm not sure where to go between this point and the next, so before I tell you the first (and perhaps only) miracle of our 2025 Easter Egg Smackdown, I'll tell you that this week was Easter Sunday, so we only had one hour of church. Last week was our ward conference (and the week before that was General Conference), and two weeks before that was the week Benjamin spoke in church.
Anyway, a major highlight of his day last week—during ward conference—was that the bishop quoted him in the middle of his talk. Bishop Dallin said, "As Benjamin Heiss advised us all a few weeks ago—do what you can do!"
That also happened to be the message of Andrew's underwear talk during FHE this evening.
But I digress...so now I suppose I can tell you the miracle of the 2025 Easter Egg Smackdown: not a single egg was cracked during the egg dying process. No one dropped one or accidentally put all their weight on one or knocked one off the table or anything. We usually lose quite a few in the process of dying...but I guess the kids are growing up or something and now they all (mostly) know how to treat eggs with care (that is, we are no longer quite as outnumbered by chaos-makers as we once were).
Everyone got three eggs to decorate (with one egg designated the emergency back up egg...which we didn't even need).
"Take, take, take, take, take!" she said as she gathered the shiny plastic eggs (that were expertly hidden by the young women earlier that morning).
I realized that I completely missed out on making a joke about spring break! Because last week is technically when we took our spring break (though we're also almost through all of our curriculum so we're on, like, "school lite" right now...plus it's, like, the crunch time of my semester, so...). We had such a good spring break our spring broke!
Phoebe is our default FHE conductor. She just assumes that giving everyone the agenda for the evening is her responsibility...and she loves it.
"Welpum to faminy night!" she'll announce. "I'm going to choose the song..."
Of course she's going to choose the song (like there's any other option).
"...and Mommy is going to say the prayer. I choose...Once There Was a Snowman!"
She used to always choose How Much is That Doggy in the Window, but we told her it had to be a primary song. Technically, Once There Was a Snowman is a primary song. It's just not a very reverent one.
So we sang that song while she twirled around in circles, shaking her little egg shaker, and having the time of her life. When it was time to get ready for prayer, she ran over to kneel by Daddy.
She's so glad he's home!