Mayem and Momost

Phoebe sat in an open-ended time-out for...I don't know how long...before dinner. Not an oppressively long amount of time, mind you. And it was her choice to be there, so I don't even feel too badly about it.

Our house is somehow a disaster, so before dinner I rallied the children to do some tidying up. Phoebe didn't want to help and kept screaming and crying at everyone so I told her to sit on the stairs and be quiet until she decided she could contribute to the household rather than simply causing chaos. 

So she sat and sulked. 

"Have you decided you're ready to help yet?" I asked her as I passed by the stairs on my way to put something away. 

"I AM MOMOST READY TO DECIDE!" she wailed. 

Sunday splash

So we took the kids to the beach.

 

Definitely sick

Rachel and Miriam took the ACT today. When we signed them up we actually chose GSU campus for their testing center because then Andrew can take them in and just...go hang out in his office while he waits for them to finish. We know because...this is not their first time taking the ACT. In fact, the ACT company gave out a two-for-one coupon for each of the girls when they took the ACT the last time, so this was essentially a free second test.

Unfortunately, they cancelled the test at GSU for our testing date and the girls were moved to a random high school way down the the airport. 

Horseflies at the pool

This morning I finally finished reading the kids our last out-loud book for the school year (not that I will stop reading to them altogether; in fact I just read to them for a half hour before bed...but this is our last out-loud read-together school book for the school year). We read An Impossible Thing to Say by Arya Shahi, which I was initially drawn to because it's about Iranian diaspora. My brother Patrick is dating a girl from Iran and so I think it's good for us to be learning a bit about Iranian history and so forth (we recently read Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri out loud at bedtime and had Benjamin read Dairus the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram and I recommended The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi to Uncle Patrick as well while he was here...but I'm also kind of wondering where the female-centered stories are for contemporary CYAL so I'll have to do some research to see what I can find). 

Anyway, the book also got bonus points for being a novel in verse. Shahi is a rapper, himself, so poetry would be a natural avenue for a book, I suppose. And my kids really appreciated the rap verses he included—lots of fun rhythms and rhymes. 

And I loved how the end of the story didn't resolve everything. The grown ups were left to make their own messy choices while Omid learns to be comfortable with his emerging identity as a thespian and rapper and Farsi-speaker and so forth, understanding that life will just...continue being messy while also being okay. Mess is...normal. It was lovely. 

I didn't really know much about it before we started reading it. I just saw it pop up on some list somewhere and immediately put it on hold at the library and then forgot about it until it came in...and then selected it to read out loud to the kids because it was on my own personal list of books to read. 

It ended up fitting just perfectly into our year because we spent the year reading Shakespeare and the last play we read was A Midsummer Night's Dream. In An Impossible Thing to Say, Omid's school is putting on An Impossible Thing to Say and...so we got all the Shakespeare references in the story. 

It was great!

Anyway, Phoebe was a bit of a...handful...while we were reading this morning. And she remained that way throughout the day. She wasn't really ever naughty just...loud and full of energy and exhibiting fierce independence.

For example, here she is sitting on the stairs slathering herself in sunscreen:

Watching the April 8, 2024 Eclipse

We had a lovely time watching the eclipse this afternoon. While we weren't in the path of totality (we were about 85%), we did notice a significant gloaming effect (another vocabulary word from today) as well as an accompanied decrease in overall temperature. 

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2023

I finished this newsletter on Christmas Eve and distributed it to a few friends and family members, but I'm just getting around to posting it here today—on Christmas itself. We didn't take pictures until December 18 (the day Uncle Patrick flew in) and we've been busy, busy, busy since then. 

We had a pretty wonderful year and I can see that next year is shaping up to be just as full. And I suppose that's what we want—a full life. I have heard so many analogies about what makes life beautiful—pianos need both black keys and white keys, music needs dissonance and resolutions (those are actual terms, right?), tapestries need both warp and weave (sometimes it's your turn to really let your colours shine and other times you sit silently at the back of the fabric, lending quiet strength). What makes life sweet and unique and wonderful is taking all those things—the difficult and the pleasant—together. So this year, like all years, wasn't a perfect year, but all in all, life is wonderful. 

Alexander is 6!

As I may have mentioned, Rachel and Miriam have been staying at Grandpa's house while we've been under construction over here. It's given us a little taste of what life might be like in the next five years or so, with both those girls grown and gone. And, really, it hasn't been so bad...but only because they're still close enough to come home for dinner.

They'll be happy to be back in their own room (soon), I'm sure. 

The last couple of nights, Rachel has stayed late working on Alexander's birthday cake, requiring rides home (to Grandpa's house) in the wee hours of the morning. I drove her home on Thursday night. Andrew drove her home last night. 

It's really kind of a strange dynamic we have at our house lately.

But Alexander's cake turned out beautifully. He requested an owl-shaped cake, which he felt would be a challenge for Rachel, who prefers to make round cakes. It would help her expand her skillset, he told her—help her grow in ways she didn't think she could. 

And it was a challenge that allowed her to explore several new techniques. 

Anyway, when Rachel and Miriam turned up at the house this morning, Alexander took one look at them and said, "PRESENTS!"

So that's what we did.

Miriam had helped wrap presents one evening when she was here late and we had them set out in the music room the last couple of days. Alexander mentioned that he decided for his birthday he might like to have some presents and I said, "Too bad. I don't think we have any of those."

"Can't I just have those presents?" he asked, pointing to the stack of presents.

"Oh, those presents? I guess so," I said. 

Here he is ready to open presents this morning:

Waterton (August 27)

In retrospect, I should have been more forthright with Heather about our accommodations while we were in Canada. To be fair to myself, I was experiencing some insecurities regarding my likability* when I reached out to her to ask if I could stay with her while I was in Canada and, unfortunately, she and her parents and sister had reservations to camp at Waterton the very week I was due to be in Canada. 

She didn't know how desperate I was for accommodations and I was too insecure to say, "Hey! Take care of me for a minute!" So neither one of us thought to suggest that I just...housesit...for her! That would have solved all my problems!

When she drove me to the airport on Wednesday morning (spoilers!), she was like, "Nancy! I should have just given you guys the code to my house! You could have stayed there while I was away! It wouldn't have been a problem at all!"

In fact, Heather was so sweet that when I asked her if I (and my children) could spend the night at her place on Tuesday evening and have her drive me/us to the airport on Wednesday morning, so immediately said yes. 

Then apparently she turned to her mom and said, "I just said Nancy and her kids could spend the night at my place on Tuesday, but...where will I put them?"

Her mom reminded her that her camper would be sitting in her driveway so (spoilers!) I ended up sleeping in the camper with not one, not two, but five little girls! (Miriam slept inside with Sadie and Miley, so I had three of Heather's girls with me and two of my own, and Heather didn't lie—that bed in her camper is really comfortable!)

She didn't even hesitate. She just said, "Of course!" and then bothered about the details, like determining where we might sleep...and informing her husband, who has been working on advanced certifications for his pilot's license (he's already a pilot but is getting extra certifications) and who she hadn't seen for a week and who was due to arrive home on Tuesday evening that, well, he'd have a house full of company to greet him in addition to his wife and his girls. And do you know how Ryan responded to this news? 

By bringing home a little packages of airplane biscuits for the kids. 

When he walked in the door he presented them to his daughters, who immediately started squealing with glee while also calling out, "The cousins! The cousins! Did you bring some for the cousins?!"

"I brought enough for everyone," Ryan assured them, handing biscuits to my children as well.

He's definitely the calming presence in that house, perfectly complimenting Heather's natural rambunctiousness. But she is such a fun and loving and patient mother! It was fun to spend some time with her and I so appreciate how graciously they hosted us.

But, before I knew I'd be spending the night at Heather's house on Tuesday, we had arranged to meet her down in Waterton on Sunday. Waterton is a national park in southern Alberta that abuts Glacier National Park in Montana (together they comprise an international peace park). 

We went to Emerald Bay on Waterton Lake, to splash and kayak and sit and visit. 

When we were deciding where to go, Heather asked, "Are your kids allowed to swim-swim on Sundays?"

We don't have a problem with that in our household, though I know that Andrew's family did while growing up (though to be fair, when Grandma and Grandpa took our kids to Grover the year I was too pregnant with Alexander and Zoë was too sick and Andrew was too out-of-town to join them...they also let the kids swim on Sunday)! Karen texted me to say that they "did NOT let the kids swim in Lake Powell this afternoon." And later Shayla tagged me in this picture on Facebook:

Goblin Valley (June 9)

First, I should warn you that there are a million pictures from our short stop in Goblin Valley. And although Goblin Valley is a whole lot of fun to visit...there's not really a big variety of things to do there. You just kind of...run around in the desert...and climb on hoodoos and things.

This means that pictures will very likely outweigh my text. This happens routinely with my Goblin Valley posts.

To quote from my 2012-self: 

Even though Goblin Valley is an interesting place to hike around and explore it's apparently not a very interesting place to write about—I believe I ran into the same problem while discussing Goblin Valley last year [when I said "the trip could be summed up as: we climbed on rocks—a lot"].

In short, we climbed on things, we jumped off of things, we played in the dirt, and we got hot and sweaty.

This year was no exception. We hiked around. We climbed on things. We had a blast. And...yup.

There are, however, a few important stories to share...

Just for comparison's sake

 Here's Miriam and Phoebe side-by-side:

Grover and Capitol Reef (June 7–9)

We left the Grand Canyon around noon, stopping in Kanab around 3:30 for our traditional lunch of peanut butter and jam sandwiches, as well as a quick grocery run so we could eat while we were at Grover.

Here are the kids enjoying their food:

A lick of our trip (in numbers)

When I think about this trip, I think about taking a long lick along one of those popsicles that has layers of flavour. You know, like the red, white, and blue ones? Or rainbow pops? Or something. There was just so much to see, so much variation in the landscape, so many different ways of living. We didn't get to dive in deep anywhere, but we saw a lot.

So I offer to you a lick...of our lick...of the United States. In numbers...

Utah or bust!

After being home from the beach for a week, we left on a cross-country road trip to Utah. In retrospect, a week was perhaps not quite enough time for a family of eight to turn around from a beach vacation to a long-haul roadtrip, but somehow we managed to get things done...most things, anyway. 

We left on Benjamin's birthday, stopping by New Orleans for some birthday beignets, and then driving on to San Antonio, Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon before settling in at the cabin in Grover, Utah, to enjoy Capitol Reef for a couple of days. Rachel and I then gave Grandpa and Daddy a break from driving—she and I drove from Grover to Goblin Valley (which is about 1.5 hours away, the longest period of time either Rachel or I have ever driven; Andrew even took a car nap and then woke up in a panic because he never gets to take car naps and wondered why the car was moving). We finally made it to Spanish Fork on Friday and have been busy ever since.

Zoë was baptized on Saturday, for example.

Pictures will be coming soon, I'm sure. In the meantime we're still adventuring and visiting and having a grand ol' time!

DC with Diana!

Diana is anxiously waiting to make her appearance on the blog—a high honour! She's the brains behind this trip to Washington, D.C. 

As far as I understand things, Michael had been planning on going to DC on a school trip but it was cancelled due to the pandemic and so Richard and Diana decided they'd just take Michael themselves. She wrote to us back in February to get the idea in our heads. 

Hey y’all. Richard, Michael and I are flying to WA DC July 12-16.

We were having a discussion like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Reid came and was our history buff during the trip?” Which then led to, “and maybe he’d come and bring Rachel, which would be cool for Michael to get to know her better, too.” 

Reid was immediately on board. He likes history and it had been a few years since he'd been to DC. 

I think it was me who suggested that Reid take Miriam as well as Rachel, because those three (second) cousins are all pretty close in age. 

Here's Rachel, 7 months old, meeting Michael for the first time in February 2008:

Ten

I am the world's best and most catastrophic rounder, according to Andrew. He told me this after he suggested we take a packing break and I said, "We only have ten more days!!"*

"Eleven," he calmly corrected.

"Today is almost over," I said.

"But today is not over yet so we still have eleven days. You are the world's best and most catastrophic rounder. You make everything sound like impending doom!"

So, there are eleven days until our truck arrives. But by the time we wake up tomorrow there will only be ten days until our truck arrives (and two weeks until we really take off) so in honour of eleven (almost ten) days until we once again cram all of our belongings into the back of a truck, I give you our ten highs and lows from life in Spanish Fork.*

* Now there really are only ten days until our truck arrives, which honestly feels more like nine...

I feel like we did something like this before leaving a few other homes (though I'm not sure we did one for Durham, but I could probably do one retrospectively). So without further ado, I give you a few lists of things that "we" think we'll miss/look forward to, and by "we" I mean "I":

Ten highs we experienced in Spanish Fork:

1. Alexander's birth
2. Miriam's baptism 
3. Benjamin started kindergarten
4. Rachel's spectacular last year of elementary school
5. Andrew graduated from Duke
6. Nancy got to play with gamelan and take a writing class
7. Zoë went from baby to big kid—from potty training to preschool
8. We got to go to Grover again (and visit Alberta, for that matter)
9. Rachel got to go to the temple for the first time at the Payson temple
10. We always had family to invite to everything

Ten lows we experienced in Spanish Fork:

1. Karen's death
2. Alexander's broken arm
3. We frequently felt smothered by family drama
4. Some of us have struggled to find friends here
5. Sometimes the train wakes up the baby at 2 AM
6. There are no bo-berry biscuits here
7. It's so far from the ocean
8. This last winter was so long and we were sick the entire time
9. The library was just so small, guys
10. We were perpetually stressed out over our impending unemployment

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2018

I mostly finished this poem and then sat and waited, wondering whether or not we'd hear back from Georgia (or Italy, but that's another story) in time to include it in the newsletter. Finally we decided to publish it without knowing (after all, we've ended every other poem with a big ol' question mark about our future) but as soon as we'd decided that we got the call from Georgia offering us a position!

So then I decided to work it into the newsletter after all, which meant I had to wait another week while the offer was finalized. Andrew signed all the paperwork yesterday so it's officially official—we'll be moving to Georgia next year (after we finish up the school year here)! 

Hold onto your hats, folks, because this poem ended up being significantly longer than in years past. It's been a doozy of a year, though, so that's completely justifiable (right?).

You can download the full-size version here, or read the text below the jump:

Hand and Foot

We played Hand and Foot tonight—Rachel, Miriam, Emily, Andrew, and I—and we had a nice time. We were loud and silly and ruthless.

When Miriam did the "reading of the score," a Heiss family tradition that I've come to accept even though it flies in the face of everything I learned as a child, she revealed what Andrew and I already knew: we did not do well.

"Dad's in last place with 155. Then Mom with 300," she said.

"But," Rachel interjected, "You're supposed to add them up before you read them."

"I did add them up," Miriam replied saucily. "That's all they got."

"Ouch," Emily said.

"Sick burn," I said.

Her burn was made even more effective because Rachel wasn't trying to insult our scores at all. She genuinely didn't believe they could possibly be so low (but they were). Everyone else scored well over 1000.

I couldn't help but think how much Karen would have enjoyed playing Hand and Foot with us this evening and joining in the conversation and laughter (we're still capable of laughter) and ribbing going on. I'm probably not alone in thinking so. It was her favourite game.

Rachel and Miriam have been slowly aging into Hand and Foot (starting with playing "just one round"), so I hope they'll remember the few times they got to play with Grandma—in Durham, the hotel in Idaho, at Grover, and here (and probably a few other places as well). I wish they could play a thousand more rounds with her but instead they'll have to play with us...which is good news for them because, if tonight's game is any indication, apparently Andrew and I are not very good players!

Beautiful things

The past couple of days have been quite the bouquet of emotions. Our front door has been a revolving door with people coming and going all day long, staying only for a brief hug or to drop off a meal, or staying to chat for hours and clean our microwave. It's been exhausting (especially so for Reid) to tell the story over and over again but at the same time it's been healing (she said sagely after two days of grieving (I'm sure more grief is coming)).

We probably had a hundred people stop by yesterday (and that's no exaggeration).

My favourite vignettes from the past couple of days are:

Thursday night and Grandma's passing

When Reid and Emily arrived home from the hospital last night they were somewhat somber.

Shortly before they were about to leave the nurse informed them that Karen's potassium levels were causing her heart to beat arrhythmically again (they had managed to get her potassium levels under control when she was first admitted), which was a sign that she was preparing to pass on. Reid asked if he should stay, but the nurse told him to go home to get some rest. She would call if things seemed to be getting close to the end.

Josie asked my mom if they could stop by to see her before going home and before we knew it, Miriam (who at 9:30 was just coming downstairs to brush her teeth, the little bedtime evader), Josie, my mom and I were heading to the hospital.

When the nurse came to see what business we had at the ICU so late at night, I explained that Reid had sent us to say goodbye to Karen. "Oh, by all means," she said and then bent down to reassure Miriam, who was staring with panic at the sign that said 'no visitors under the age of 12.' "We make exceptions for children under these circumstances."

These circumstances.

I hadn't seen Karen since Saturday night when she was awake and talking (somewhat) and still looked like herself more or less. When I saw her last night the change was jarring. She didn't look like herself at all, but we bravely filed into the room anyway to say goodbye.

"Hi Karen," I...blurted.

I don't know that blurted is the right word. It was a blurt and a choke and a sob all rolled into one.

My little skinny Greek-bound brother*

My little brother's all grown up and moving to Greece this Friday to begin a graduate degree in Cultural Heritage Materials and Technologies at the University of Peloponnese in Kalamata. A bit of a mouthful, but terribly exciting! 

We had planned to have a farewell party for him on Sunday, but then he ended up having to go back to San Francisco to sort out an issue with his visa (you can only apply for long-term visas in person), so we cancelled the party. Rosie and Austin didn't get that memo, though, so they showed up on Sunday, anyway. It was wonderful to get to visit with them but they were probably shocked at the state of our kitchen.

Rachel, Miriam, and I had arrived home from stake choir practice mere minutes before Rosie and Austin showed up. We'd missed out on having dinner with Jacob, Shayla, and Carter (unfortunately; though I hear a good time was had by all). Riley was over as well. That made for four kids three and under, which made for quite the mess (as Auntie Emily can probably testify to since that's pretty much her daily life). The kitchen was a disaster, but Rosie and Austin came in to visit and have a sample of Rachel's raisin bread anyway (Rachel has made bread (in the bread machine) every Sunday the last few weeks: just a plain loaf at first, and then an apple pecan loaf, and then raisin (she has big plans for this Sunday—a "spring" bread recipe that calls for orange zest (she's very excited about that part))). 

I'm happy to report that the kitchen was much cleaner for today's party!

(Probably still not perfect, but at least better than it was on Sunday).

We spent the first little while outside playing. Our air quality has been top notch lately, getting up into the hundreds at time, but usually below 90, and well below 400+. It feels great to be able to say, "Go outside!" to my kids again!

Anyway, we have a badminton net set up in the backyard right now. Andrew brought it home a few weeks ago after he and Rachel had gone shopping for soccer cleats. I'd mentioned wanting to get a set to play while we were at Grover (because horseshoes isn't really my jam) but we couldn't find summer-fun toys anywhere. It was a nice surprise. So, the net is up and the kids have been going out every day after school and sometimes when Alexander isn't terribly whiney I join them. We played a bit of badminton this evening, in between our visiting.

Here's Benjamin enjoying Rosie's lap while Matthew looks on: