Conference Weekend

General Conference starts tomorrow—the girls are pretty excited about it but I know that excitement will wane quickly. Conference talks aren't known to hold children's attention so like a lot of mothers out there I've spent some time this evening looking for activities for the girls to do that will hopefully help them pay attention (at least for a little while) and also keep them quiet and occupied so that I can pay attention.

I liked this idea about collecting conference eggs because my girls are rather excited about Easter as well as conference. I did not, however, like the execution—the eggs are just ovals instead of lop-sided ellipticals and for some reason that really bothered me. So I made up my own template, using pictures from the conference squares on LDS.org. I printed off (this) basket for each of the girls to make and then made up some eggs for them to colour while they listen to conference. The idea with the "topic" eggs is that they will colour the egg when they hear a speaker mention the topic. The other sheets are simply because they need something to keep their hands busy.

2012 Awards Banquet

Tonight was the 2012 Administrator of the Year/Graduation & Awards Banquet for the MPA program. We went last year because Andrew won the Garth N. Jones Writing Award (his paper is due to be published this month, actually). This year, while we certainly planned on attending the banquet since part of its purpose is to honour the graduates, Andrew wasn't planning on submitting anything to the contest because he'd already won once. But he was in a group with Jenny and Anthony and they wrote a paper together and Jenny wanted to submit it. 

So on March 12th—the day submissions were due—at 12:30 PM Andrew started chatting to me on IM. Here's our conversation, for your enjoyment. You can ignore the highlighting on "Andrew" and "edit;" those were my search terms and I'm simply too darn lazy right now to remove all those tags from the code.

12:30 PM Andrew: Yo

  You there?

26 minutes

12:56 PM me: Now I am.

  We were at lunch with your mom. [A Relief Society/Friends lunch club]

 Andrew: Ah, yeah.

  Do you want to quickly edit something for me?

  How was lunch, by the way?

 me: Sure.

  It was good.

12:57 PM The girls both developed mysterious stomach aches that disappeared the minute we agreed to go home. :)

 Andrew: They weren't having fun?

 me: Apparently grown ups are nerdy.

  And boring.

  And lame.

12:59 PM Andrew: Totally.

  I just sent you the Google Doc link.

 me: I see it.

 Andrew: We're going to submit this as a joint Garth Jones paper.

  Just for the heck of it.

 me: :)

 Andrew: The deadline is 5 PM today, so yikes.

 me: haha

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of...Durham...

After much deliberation we've settled on attending Duke and feel pretty confident in our decision. Surprisingly I'm the one second-guessing it all the time ("Are you sure this is what you want to do?") and Andrew is ready to just keep moving forward, as well he should be. He crafted a very nice letter to IUB and they were very sad to see him go (or, rather, not come). We were sad to not go, too.

Both campuses and faculty and programs had much to offer—our problem was that we could only choose one place.

Now, we've been thinking about this for a long time. I started praying that we'd know what to do after Andrew graduated long before graduation was even in our radar. I think that's why I so readily accepted the idea of going after a PhD (even though I had long ago given up on that in hopes of, you know, a job). When we had turned in all of our applications I started praying even harder that we wouldn't have to face another disappointment and that we'd at least get accepted somewhere.


Weeks after we'd applied, we got a letter from Duke saying we were accepted and they were offering us x-amount of money and other perks.

Weeks after that, we got a letter from IUB saying that we were accepted and that they were offering us x-amount of money and other perks (but 25% less than what Duke offered us while asking Andrew to put more time in to earn that money and asking us to pay out about 10% of our stipend for the privilege of attending school since Indiana state law does not permit universities to waive fees).

Andrew got back from visiting both campuses this week and loved them both.

We made dancing line graphs considering things like money, professors, program, weather, cost of living, and so forth. We drew up lists of pros and cons for each place. We talked to friends and family and professors. We fasted and prayed and attended the temple. We talked into the wee hours of the morning about...every possible variable to take into account.

In the end, while it was difficult to say goodbye to IUB and their top-ranked program (and what an honour it was to be accepted there), Duke was the clear choice.

A stick

Yesterday wasn't exactly a fun day. It involved a lot of screaming all around. But today? Today has been pretty good so far.

My visiting teachers came over this morning and it was a lot of fun getting caught up with them—I haven't seen one of my visiting teachers (my running partner Wendy) in months. Needless to say we haven't been running together in months because I wasn't into running much through November, December, January and...even now. Wendy's been sick, though, and hasn't wanted to go running, either. Turns out, she's pregnant, too (due in September), and hasn't been up to doing much. It's her eighth baby...and a bit of a surprise.

Miriam and I picked Rachel up from school and we spent a lot of time selecting sticks.

Rachel ran ahead of me and Miriam to get to the corner first where she picked up a stick and announced, "I think the best way to keep away from screaming is to just pick up a stick now and not put it down until we get home."

I told her I thought that was a great idea.

We ended up bringing armfuls of sticks home.

The girls made a couple of "campfires" (on the deck and on the sidewalk out in the yard) that they were rather proud of.

What's brown and sticky?

This morning Andrew and I went to the temple, which meant the girls had the morning with Grandma, which meant that Grandma had to get Rachel off to school. We were home in time for Miriam and me to walk over to the school to pick her up and she was (initially) very excited to see us.

Rachel and Miriam ran down the hill and around the corner laughing and playing. Then they got to a house with a big tree on their lot—one of those big, messy trees that is forever dropping twigs and things on the ground (my girls love it but I can only imagine how much maintenance it requires) which we had to stop and play with, of course. The girls picked up twigs and started casting spells at each other and when they got bored of that they started whacking pole of the street sign to make some beautiful "music." They would have stayed there all day but eventually I said that I wanted to eat lunch eventually so it was time to be on our way.

My sweet, cooperative children obeyed and followed me down the sidewalk.

When we were just about at our very own corner Rachel realized that Miriam still had a stick. She immediately turned green with envy—not only did she also want a stick but she needed a stick and she needed it now. It just wasn't fair that Miriam had taken a stick from the neighbour's yard when Rachel had not.

I pulled the nice mom card and told her to run on back and choose a stick. Miriam and I would wait for her at our corner—Miriam was already tired of walking and was asking to be carried so I didn't want to make her walk/carry her all the way to the end of the street and back again; besides she was much too interested in using her stick to poke the bush we were standing by (she discovered a water bottle was lodged inside the bush and was very amused by this).

Rachel excitedly tore off for the opposite corner of the block. She stooped and picked up a stick then threw it down, only to bend over and examine a new one. This went on for several minutes.

"What are you doing?" I hollered. "Just choose a stick!"

"I can't!" she yelled back. "I need help!"

"No, you don't!"

MPA Graduation Details

Graduation season is upon us once again! 

Last night I whipped up an announcement to send to our family members and realized that I totally neglected to do that the last time he graduated (in my defense, no one would have been able to come, anyway, but I suppose it would have been nice). Fortunately he graduates frequently enough that I could make up for my neglect by making him an announcement for this graduation.

Three graduations down, one to go!

And where we're going nobody knows. 

Partying, partying, yeah!

Yesterday we went to the park.

No! A new one!

On the way we walked past a lawn that had recently been aerated so there were little dirt pellets all over the lawn (and sidewalk). The girls both initially thought that they were doggy doo-doo. I was only able to convince Rachel that they were just dried chunks of dirt. She picked one up and used it like sidewalk chalk. She wrote her name, which got us onto the topic of names. We talked about names for a long time.

What a wonderful world this would be

There's this song that I always thought was original to Herman's Hermits...but apparently it's by Sam Cooke...it's called "Wonderful World." What really made me think of the lyrics was that my geography is a little bit sketchy so after I had Rachel stand on North Carolina and Indiana so that I could take her picture I had to come home and double check that I had her on the right states. And I'm proud to say I did.

Rachel found Utah all by herself. I thought that was pretty good.

There are a few lines of "Wonderful World" that I thought pertained to our situation rather well:

Don't know much about geography.

Don't know much trigonometry.

Don't know much about algebra.

Don't know what a slide rule is for.

But I know that one and one is two!

And if this one could be with you

What a wonderful world this would be!

We still aren't sure where we'll be headed at the end of the summer. 

Will it be North Carolina?

Or will it be Indiana?

Lunchbox notes II

Rachel just ran out of bed, yelling, "Hey, Mom! Mom! Mom!"

"What?" I sighed because, honestly, it's been a long day.

"Just...when you leave a note in my lunchbox make sure it has a picture of space on it."

"Space?"

"Yeah. Like Mars. I'd like a picture of Mars."

"Yeah...okay."

"Good night."

"Good night."

She closed the door. And then opened it again.

"Oh, and Venus," she added. "Mars and Venus."

"Yeah. Mars and Venus. Got it. Good night. I love you."

"Love you, too, Mom."

So...Mars and Venus, huh? I might have to redo my note...

Lunchbox notes

Today when we were walking home from the park, Rachel was skipping along beside me, swinging her lunchbox.

"Mom?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you ever leave me notes in my lunchbox?"

"What?"

"All the other kids at school get notes in their lunch and I never do. Like Cole and Ezra and Corbin and...everybody. They all get surprise notes from their moms in their lunch and I just never do. Can you do that for me one day? Just send me a note to school in my lunch as a surprise?"

"Sure. I can do that."

"It's just hard to never get a note from your mom when everyone else does, you know?"

"I didn't know everyone else was getting notes from their mom. But do you know what? They can't be surprised by a note every day! If it happens all the time then it isn't a real surprise, is it? So I'll surprise you with a note one of these days, but not every day or you'll expect it and then it won't be a surprise anymore."

"You mean it will be a better surprise than what the other kids get because it will be a real surprise that I don't know about?"

"Exactly."

"Hooray!"

I turned my status around from Worst Mom to Best Mom in one short conversation. Not bad.