One more sleep (and Rachel's concert)

The fact that Nevada is on Pacific Time really threw me off because for some reason that extra hour really makes a difference. By the time I was finished with conference stuff for the day it would be past bedtime for Phoebe, so I didn't get to talk to her until this weekend. The very first thing she wanted to know was how many sleeps she had left until I was coming home.

"You are coming home, right?" she asked.

"Yes!" I said. "Of course!"

"Thank you!" she sighed heavily. "How many sleeps?"

"Three."

She spent the duration of the (video) call hopping into the frame to verify "Three more sleeps?" every chance she got.

"Yes, yes. Three more sleeps."

On the first day I was gone she asked how many sleeps it would be—seven—and then proceeded to diligently count down until 7:00, which she felt was ample time for Mommy to be gone. She misses me, but to be fair, she's had a great time with Daddy! She's stayed in her jammies a lot (she does that with Mommy, too), she's eaten lots of carrots, she got to help make applesauce, she's had way more screen time than usual, and she hasn't had to do any reading lessons! Life is good!

*****

Rachel was in University Chorale this semester (and she plans on taking it again next semester). She didn't tell me about her concert (although it's good to know that it's broadcast—Andrew ended up being able to watch as well) but Naanii knew about it, so when she realized my trip would align with Rachel's concert she went and bought an extra ticket for me! 

Rachel also didn't tell us that she'd be singing in devotional today, at least not until, like, yesterday or something. But my mom and I were able to make it, along with Rachel's supervisor, as I perhaps already mentioned. When I met up with Rachel afterward she admitted to not feeling well. She had a light cough and an upset tummy, but eating lunch made her feel a little better. 

I left her to get her work done while I went and met with various people around the library (Rachel Wadham and Cristina Bean, for example), and then she went home to get ready for her evening concert and my mom and I went to pick up Auntie Josie from work (at the Orem library) so we could have dinner and get to the concert. 

Thank goodness for Rachel's roommates, who helped her look fabulous! Hailey helped her pick out some new shoes during some Black Friday shopping (at...DI...so new-to-Rachel shoes) and loaned Rachel a black dress and took her shopping for makeup (since the girls in the choir were required to do makeup and Rachel wasn't ever taught about makeup from her mother...who...doesn't wear makeup). Her roommates had fun teaching her how to apply makeup. One roommate (Elicia?—not sure how to spell her name) curled her hair for her. 

Oh, and Hailey made Rachel some soup for dinner to help her feel better.

She's lucky to have such wonderful roommates!

We made it to the concert, though we ended up parking laughably far away. We didn't even park that far away, but it was still laughably far. Rachel still wasn't feeling well, you see. So we asked her if she wanted to stay for the whole concert or if she wanted to leave in the middle, since her section of University Chorale had finished their singing. Ultimately she decided she wanted to leave at half-time.

So we said, "Great. We'll meet you out front," and we left during the "pause" in the program. I made her take a few pictures in front of the Christmas trees (she's wearing heels so she's as tall as me).

She's so beautiful (I should have taken a picture of her alone but I didn't think of it because we were trying to get her home) and so grown up (I cried a little bit while she was singing, thinking about how independent she's been this semester and how I have to leave this beautiful, grown-up daughter behind when I go back to my beautiful, less-grown-up children and how that's going to be hard...even though she'll be following me in a week).

Here we are with Josie and Naanii:

We told her we'd give her a ride home so she didn't have to walk all the way back to her apartment, sick child that she was. She felt a little guilty about leaving her roommate Margot behind (Margot is also in University Chorale), but texted her to say she was abandoning her and getting a ride home with her family. So we walked to the car and joked that we probably parked farther away than Rachel's apartment...

And we decided that I would go in to visit with Rachel while Naanii and Josie ran to the store to get some sick-person supplies that Rachel was missing—a thermometer, Throat Coat tea, cough drops, Vick's Vaporub, some instant soups, and things like that.

So, we get out of the car, walk up to Rachel's apartment...and Margot is already home, making dinner for herself! She easily beat us back, so we really had parked farther away from the music building than Rachel's apartment is.

We sat on the couch and watched the second half of the concert (I wore my mask because I don't want to take these germies home to my other kids, especially Phoebe, who just got over pneumonia). Rachel said she wouldn't have felt so worn out, except that they had a 5:00 call time for their 7:30 concert and their conductor had them rehearsing hard during those hours and it just about did her in!

We went outside to meet Josie, who was coming to deliver all those sick-person supplies she'd purchased, where I took this really bad selfie—but look how pretty Rachel's eyes are!

I'm a little worried about leaving her behind so sick and sad, but her roommate Hailey and friend Korbin (sp?) fixed her up on the couch with some tea and forbade her to get up again. They're going to enforce a bedtime for her (and I have no doubt about that because Korbin has to leave the apartment by midnight anyway—that's the curfew for coed mingling) and I have no doubt they'll help nurse her back to health.

One more sleep until I see my children-children and eight more sleeps until all my kids are under one roof!