Rachel's mission farewell

Rachel didn't know this (per se), but she was in charge of the FHE lesson on Sunday night (which is when we do FHE now, I guess) because that's when she was scheduled to give her farewell talk!

Phoebe was so excited to see Rachel on the stand. She waved and waved and waved and waved and then said, "Why won't Rachel wave back to me?"

"Because she can't see us," I explained. "We can see her but she can't see us."

"Oh, fine!" Phoebe huffed, throwing herself backwards against the couch to pout.

I don't know about you...but I'm feeling 42! (or, it's Andrew's Birthday!)

This morning we headed to GUQ for part one of a service project (part two is next weekend). It was the kind of service project that felt almost like cheating because there were so many people there that (from our perspective) we hardly had to do anything (I'm sure the organizers feel differently). We showed up, sorted a few things, and then before we'd even gotten into a rhythm victory was declared!

The very embodiment of "many hands make light work."

After a light lunch (and some time spent playing in the student lounge), we headed home (technically some of the kids went to our friends' house to play, with plans to meet up later at IKEA). We did some laundry and some homework. I took a little nap. So did Miriam (that poor girl work up at 4:45 am to attend a lecture...and ended up only catching the tail end of it because it actually started at four in the morning, not five. It was recorded so she was able to watch the rest of it this evening, but she was rather frustrated about her miscalculation). And...then we headed out to Festival City (where IKEA is). 

We picked out duvet covers and sifted through whatever was still available to cobble together some furnishings (there is quite a lot out of stock—we would love to see shipping passages open). I was excited to find an Arabic majlis sofa online (not from IKEA, which is going to be delivered next Monday). I love its versatility—it can be a couch or a bed! 

I really wanted to get a play couch for the kids (like a Nugget or whatever) to put in our shipment, but wasn't able to get one in time. The kids love building cushion forts—I figure that these majlis sofas will do just the trick!

Anyway, we wandered all through IKEA with our friends, looking at all kinds of things (most of which was out of stock) and selecting many other things to purchase, and then had a little dinner in the cafe (not the restaurant) before heading home for the sad little cake I baked. 

Rachel was pretty eager to get to talk to us on her first P-Day (preparation day: when missionaries get some time off of missionary duties to do laundry, grocery shop, catch up on correspondence, and relax a little). Phone calls home will typically be limited to P-Days, but Rachel's been calling a little more frequently since she's doing home MTC, has no companion, and is feeling a little lonely. 

Miriam has been doing companion study time with Rachel (on the phone). And my mom is trying to see if any ladies in her ward would be willing to take Rachel out for a walk in the middle of the day (like she's a crate-bound puppy—Rachel has been walking laps in the backyard during her class breaks). It will get better for her, I'm sure. 

And look! I don't know if you can see, but her name tags made it to her and she's now officially Chị Heiss! I mean, I suppose she was officially Chị Heiss when she was set apart earlier this week...but now she looks it!

Alive and Well: A Banner Day in the Heiss Household

When our house went under contract, the closing date was set to September 26 (the day before we're set to get the keys to our new apartment), but then the buyers asked if they could move that up to September 15, so we very quickly made arrangements for that. 

This was mostly fine because selling our house was rather passive for us. We had given our neighbours power of attorney, so they went to sign the documents in our place. We just had to help arrange things and be present for an "alive and well" call with the lawyer (who we'd met previously). 

Because of the time difference, this happened right during the dinner rush before mutual. Andrew was just getting out of class, I was in the middle of making dinner, and we were trying to figure out how everyone was going to get to mutual (Andrew was recently called as a teacher's quorum leader so now he goes to mutual as well). Still, we found a few minutes to sit down and hop on a call with the lawyer, verify all our information as correct (for money transfers and taxes and so forth), and then we went on our merry way. 

Alive and well, having made it through most of September 15. 

Rachel, meanwhile, had been having a rough morning and still had much of September 15 ahead of her.

She had gone to get a few vaccines the day before and woke up feeling very sore and rather overwhelmed. 

Andrew and the kids came home from mutual, we put the little kids to bed, and then Benjamin and Miriam settled in to watch Inception (for Miriam's propaganda class) while Andrew and I sat down to hype up Rachel. We talked with her for a while, did our best to make her laugh, and motivated her to do a few of the "adulting" things she still needed to do before her mission started. 

And then we had to get ready for bed because her 7-hour countdown to being set apart for a missionary was also our 7-hour countdown of how long we could possibly sleep before getting up to be present for her setting part (9 PM for her, 6 AM for us). 

We did not get 7 hours of sleep...but we did eventually go to bed.

And we mostly got up to watch Rachel be set apart. 

We decided to not wake Phoebe up, in part because...she's just a force to be reckoned with and once she's up, she's up. It seemed silly to wake her up for this when we could just...leave her sleeping. So we...didn't wake her up. 

Tour de famille (and a stop in Banff and BC)

Rachel will be set apart as a missionary in about a week. She and Auntie Josie took a road trip up to Canada to see some family and some places before Rachel settles down to business. 

Here they are at Elizabeth's house on the first night of their journey. She lives in Rexburg, so they didn't get too far their first day, but there's just something about driving 10 hours versus driving 13 hours that feels so much more doable, so I'm glad they stopped. Plus they got to visit with Elizabeth and her family!

Rachel's Alberta roadtrip

Rachel and Auntie Josie decided to take advantage of the Labour Day weekend and drove up to Alberta to do some visiting before Rachel leaves on her mission. They drove up to Rexburg on Wednesday after work and spent the night at my cousin Elizabeth's house, and then made it all the way to Grassy Lake to my cousin Eric's house on Thursday. 

I'm so proud of them for taking this road trip! What cool people! 

Earlier in the summer Rachel took a solo roadtrip from Atlanta to Tallahassee, which she was terribly afraid to do, but which she said kind of changed her brain. She managed that drive all on her own, and she managed the drive up to Alberta with Auntie Josie just fine (she said it was even better than all the city traffic in Atlanta/Tallahassee areas....and I believe that...I quite like driving in the middle of nowhere compared to city driving). 

Here's Rachel, having just made it to Alberta:

Stripey kids

 I came across this memory of a very stripey outfit that Rachel put together for Zoë on July 3, 2017:

I noted on Facebook: "Rachel dressed Zoë this morning. She wanted everything to, uh, match. So, rainbow-striped shirt (18 months), rainbow-striped pants (9 months), rainbow-striped hair bow, and striped socks."

Decision fatigue and things like that

The human heart contains four valves that act as one-
way doors, each opening and closing forcing steady

onward flow. Hello, goodbye,
hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye, hello...

This summer it feels as if my heart has shattered one-
hundred times, then pulled itself together again and 

again and perhaps that's just life pushing me forward
and closing the door, ensuring I take the next step

without looking back, without turning
into a pillar of salt. Hello, goodbye, 

hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye,

hello. 

Pool day

Today was Rachel's last full day at home, and it was finally sunny again (her time here has been so, so rainy), so we made her come swimming with us. We won't have time to go swimming (for fun) tomorrow between swim practice and picking Miriam up from YW camp and taking Rachel to the airport and going to our swim meet...so this was also Rachel's last visit to our pool.

Phoebe happily showed Rachel all her swimming skills and even agreed to go into the deep(er) end to work on her diving (though she is still refusing to enter the deep end, I think she'll be there in no time).

Zoë had a bit of a tiff with Benjamin in the deep end and decided that she was ready to go home, so she started walking around the pool wrapped up in her towel with her backpack on, urging everyone to please get out so we could go home (to be fair she'd been at the pool since 8:00 in the morning). 

Then a horsefly flew by and that girl took off her towel and backpack so fast and bolted across the deck and into the pool—with her flip flops still on her feet. There was no way she was going to risk getting bitten!

Once she was back in she was good to play for a little bit longer. We played a fun game of keep away. 

And then just as we were getting ready to go for real, Zoë's triplet friends showed up to play so...we stayed for a few more minutes so she could play with them. Benjamin had a friend that had stayed after swim practice as well, so he was also entertained. But in the end the children's empty stomachs were what called them home (empty in spite of eating an entire box of graham crackers, an entire bag of mini-bagels, a handful of string cheese, and a very large Tupperware container of apple slices while we were at the pool).

Rachel's mission pictures

This morning was so terribly rainy that swim practice was cancelled for both Alexander and Phoebe—if you can't see the bottom of the pool, that's cause to shut down the pool, and it was just that rainy. 

Rachel and I had planned to go take her mission photos today as well, but that had to wait until after the rain had stopped because we wanted to take them at the temple. I'm not an exceptional photographer, but I have found that if I take several hundred photographs there are usually a handful of keepers...

We wanted to take a picture with a Vietnamese Book of Mormon, but they don't sell those at our distribution center and we forgot to order one early enough to take photos with it. She'll have plenty of opportunity for such photos in the future, I suppose. 

For now we were just happy we got a good window of sunshine to take some pictures in this afternoon:

Rachel's mission call!

At 4:00 this afternoon (2:00 MST), we were in the process of chucking our couch off our second storey deck (for not the first time—that thing is sturdy) when Rachel suddenly exclaimed, "I got my mission call! My mission call is here! I have an email with my mission call in it! What do I do?! Guys! What do I do?!"

"Well, first I guess we'll finish pushing this couch off the deck that we have balanced on the railing and then you'll open your mission call."

Listen...

I have tried to give these couches away on multiple occasions on multiple platforms. No one wants them. They're a little scratched up (thanks, Waffles) and definitely not trendy. Our local Goodwill didn't want them. So they were destined for the landfill one way or another. 

We could have kept them to sit on for the next little while, but Andrew started this project with Miriam and Benjamin while I was in a meeting and by the time I came out they had already taken a saw and crowbar to it and were working on the first deck-chuck. So we were pretty committed to the destruction path at that point. 

He figures that this way we can sneak bits of the couch into the garbage can every week and save on the cost of disposing it. 

Anyway, we threw the couch off the balcony for the second time and then gathered around to watch Rachel open her mission call. She didn't want a big to-do about it (and even told me that if came while she was in Florida—she drove down to Florida for Corbin's mission farewell...he's off to Argentina soon—that she would just open it there and text me about it so I guess we're lucky it arrived the day after she got home from Florida), but we did take a minute to have everyone make a quick guess about where she might go.

Zoë: Tanzania or France

Alexander: Utah
Miriam: Berlin

Benjamin: Stockholm

Dad: Pennsylvania

Mom: Spanish Speaking or Canada

Phoebe: California

Atlanta Georgia Temple

Rachel began working on her mission papers shortly before the semester ended. She had decided to maybe go on a mission...in December. After talking about the pros and cons for a long time she decided that she should finish and submit her papers. But then after having made the decision to, yes, go...she felt like waiting until December was silly. 

Waiting is the worst.

So she decided to put her availability date in August (after the summer term ends). That doesn't mean she'll leave in August (she could still leave in December for all we know), but it does at least mean she won't have to wait to know when she'll be leaving and can make plans accordingly. 

She submitted her papers on Monday (after going to the doctor for the third time in a week because the doctor/nurse couldn't figure out how to fill out the form properly) and she went through the temple this morning!

You can read more about the endowment ceremony here, if you're interested!

Other Music News

I forgot to write about Rachel's choir concert! 

It was a Tuesday night (March 31) so Miriam and I watched half it in on our commute home from Athens and then watched the rest of it in Andrew's office. 

Andrew took a bunch of screenshots but I honestly don't know where I put them...like...they're on my computer somewhere probably...but I don't know where precisely (and should be writing actual papers so I'm not going to take the time to find them now). I got to attend Rachel's concert in person in December, which was wonderful, but I think it's so nice that streaming events like this is "normal" these days because I don't think it always was (or at least not so quick and easy to access). 

Here's a quick view of Rachel:

I zoomed in on her below in case you need help finding her (she is in the second row from the back, third girl from the right):

Scheherazade

Miriam just finished a major project for her history of fashion design course. From the list of available time periods she chose the Edwardian Era, which she has loved for ages. She dressed up as Mary Poppins for Halloween when she was four (her choice). And she cherished the Edwardian fashion sticker book Naanii sent her years ago, carefully placing each sticker in its correct spot and referring back to it frequently (though admittedly it has spent more time on the bookshelf than in her hands in more recent years). 

She was thrilled to get to sign up for that era...she was less thrilled with the group she had to work with, but group projects are an evil we all must endure, it seems.

Anyway, one of the odder fashion trends from the time, in my opinion, was the hobble skirt (though to be fair and completely honest, I did wear a long pencil skirt to church today and realized that the hobble skirt never entirely went away).

Miriam asked for help pronouncing Paul Poiret's name, a French designer often credited for the invention (she had to give an oral presentation so wanted to be sure she was pronouncing things correctly). We practiced and practiced saying Poiret together until she felt comfortable with it. 

Later we were on a walk and I asked how Poiret even conceived of such an idea in the first place. What an absurd thing to do—tie women's legs together so they could hardly get a good stride in (this was before I willingly put on that aforementioned pencil skirt, revealing my hypocrisy). 

Women used to even have hobble skirt races! 

Anyway...she said it was inspired by Orientalism and ballet. 

Giardia...hangover...

It finally snowed in Utah. They have been having such a dry year!

Here we made sure to send Rachel with boots and gloves and...it's been such a warm/dry winter that she hasn't really needed them! But it did finally snow last week.

Rachel and her roommate Hailey made "snow cream" to celebrate the occasion. 

It's somewhat of a southern tradition, I believe, where mix, like, sweetened condensed milk into a big ol' bowlful of fresh snow. Fresh being the key word there. 

Rachel and Hailey waited until the day after it snowed to collect their snow for snow cream.

Gross. 

They offered some to their other roommates, who all refused. One is a wildlife sciences major and she was like, "Umm...no thanks. I know what's in snow...so..."

Rachel and Hailey were pretty grossed out themselves when they left it on the counter to melt and saw all the...fun stuff...the snow was harbouring. 

The whole time Rachel was telling us this story we were interjecting with, "Rachel!!" and "Rachel—noooo!" just about every sentence.

Finally she goes, "Hey! We could be drinking, okay? But we're not!"

"Giardia...hangover...giardia...hangover..." Andrew said, as if weighing options. 

Gotta experiment with something, I guess... 

Tooth-hurty

I just went to tell Andrew that I was calling it a night and going to bed. In return he asked me what time my dentist appointment was at tomorrow.

My teeth are fine. It's just a(nother) Invisalign appointment (I will be in braces forever, I fear). 

"It's at the funniest time!" I said. 

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah—1:00!"

And then we both laughed much harder than perhaps we should have because the punchline here is actually that Rachel legitimately can never remember what the "funny" time is, so she has—on several occasions—claimed to have a dentist appointment at the funniest time, when her appointment has been at, like, noon, or 4:30, or 9:15. 

We all know that the best time to go to the dentist is at 2:30 though, right? Right?

Rachel's home!

Rachel's plane touched down around 11:00 last night. She's been home for less than 12 hours and already I've sent her to the dentist. 

Well-child checks for Phoebe and Miriam

Rachel went to the doctor today. She has the flu, poor thing.

I also took Miriam and Phoebe to the doctor at the same time...just here in Georgia! 

I need to remember to ask to not see Dr. Z. She was okay at Zoë's appointment in May (though I need to remember to take Zoë back in for a COVID shot) but was rather pessimistic about homeschooling today. 

First, I should mention that Miriam was hoping to have gained at least an inch since her last visit. Instead she learned that they mis-measured her at her last visit, so she not only didn't grow. She's shorter than she thought. 

So it was already a ho-hum visit.

At Phoebe's visit, the doctor insisted she couldn't understand Phoebe very well and that Phoebe thus needs speech therapy. I told the doctor that was ridiculous. 

Actually I said, "Respectfully, I'm going to disagree with your assessment. I'm a trained linguist. I'm currently getting a PhD in children's literacies. I'm around children a lot. And I don't think Phoebe is behind her peers at all. She's made significant improvements from last year—if you recall, she was fronting all of her sounds, couldn't say /k/ or /g/, but now she can say words with /k/ and /g/ and she has mastered several consonant blends and..."

"I'm pretty fluent in toddler myself. I should be able to understand 90 to 100% of what she's saying and I simply can't. Early intervention is key!"

"Yes, but she's making fine progress by any metric," I countered.

Guys, listen—the doctor is working from old standards. 

Newer studies indicate that the "General rules of thumb for intelligibility of multiword utterances, based on data for the lowest performing typical children, are as follows: (a) By 4 years, children should be at least 50% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener; (b) by the 5 years, children should be at least 75% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener; and (c) by just over 7 years, children should be 90% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener" (see further, less erudite discussion here).

Now, I wouldn't say that Phoebe is among the lowest performing typical children range. In fact, I think she speaks rather clearly and that her vocabulary is rather impressive.

For example, consider Benjamin and his "ucky, mucky augie." 

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. 

If you care at all...

Yesterday evening Andrew sent me a picture of Phoebe gnawing on a huge carrot she found in the fridge. It took her all day long but she felt rather triumphant when she finally finished. Andrew called it her 10-hour carrot.

Putting up the "Cur-smiss-mas" tree

I might be a little sad that I'm leaving for a conference tomorrow when there are so many Christmas things to be done! But at least I'm not leaving for Ethiopia to help manage a pandemic like my friend (who did negotiate to be home in time for Christmas, but who could do little but wish her husband good luck with all the Christmas prep). I'll be home on the 10th. 

Still! There's much to be done and...I feel like I'm missing a big chunk of it. 

And there simply aren't hours enough in the day! Sunday was a bustling day, with church, followed by a few church friends coming over, followed by a baptism (conducted in Chinese), followed by choir practice...it went on and on and on.

Today I had a meeting in the morning and then we did some school work in the afternoon (the kids also did school work in the morning, but I didn't oversee that bit). Then Benjamin had swimming (and Miriam came to practice the organ at the church) and by the time we came home for FHE it had been dark for several hours and solar-powered Phoebe was beginning to feel sleepy...

But she still wanted to make a start on the advent calendars and we had promised to decorate the tree for FHE. Andrew even hauled up the tree all by himself—we got smart about it a few years ago so he was able to bring the whole thing up by himself. The first few years we had this thing he and I would lug the entire thing out of the basement all at once, box and all. It was unwieldy and heavy and horrible. 

Then in 2021, Phoebe was born just a few weeks before we were set to put up the tree. I was not cleared for carrying heavy items—nothing heavier than my teensy little "gaunt" baby (that's what we called her, Rachel! Gaunt Baby! We were talking about this a few weeks ago—how Rachel had such glorious chubby baby cheeks and Phoebe simply did not. She was such a skinny little thing, not even 6 lbs when we brought her home from the hospital, but we couldn't remember what we called her because no adjectives were right—not skinny, not emaciated...gaunt...but don't worry! She got fatter as time wore on!). Anyway, I wasn't supposed to lift anything heavy, so hauling a ginormous Christmas tree up the stairs was out of the question.

It was then that we put our incredible heads together and realized we didn't have to haul the whole thing up at once. We could just leave the box in the basement and bring up the parts of the tree separately. 

In fact, I believe Andrew brought the tree up by himself that particular year. And he brought the tree up by himself—piece by piece—again today while I was out with Miriam and Benjamin.

So we did the advent calendars. And then we let the kids put one tin of ornaments up on the tree before we did our first Christmas devotional and put Phoebe to bed. 

We will do more decorating tomorrow before my flight...I guess...

Here are the kids looking at the ornaments: