Headlines

We don't get the newspaper. Mostly we read the news online. Truthfully, Andrew mostly reads the news online and I only occasionally will read the news. Usually I read it only if Andrew tells me about something interesting is happening or if something just happens to catch my eye.

Since not a whole lot of interesting things happen around Orem we read mostly international newspapers. We rarely read local news, so perhaps interesting things happen and we just don't know about them. Sure, we hear about so-and-so making the front page and things like that, and we're sure to read about them, but as a general rule we steer clear of local newspapers.

Every now and then we catch a glimpse of our neighbour's paper and we read the headlines just to stay caught up with local news.

Our downstairs neighbours haven't picked up their paper in a couple of days. They've just been piling up on their doorstep and we've been reading them.

This morning as we were heading to the pool, Andrew stopped dead in his tracks and tilted his head sideways.

"What?" I asked, mimicking his posture, "Oh..."

The headline jumped out at me. BYU track team killed in car wreck, I read.


"Wow," said Andrew solemnly.

"The whole team..." I said with awe.

We stood there in stunned silence, our heads cocked identically to the left, for several minutes.

Rachel started to get a little antsy to get moving again and snapped me out of my stupor by biting my shirt and pulling it with her teeth.

It was then that I realized that half the headline was folded over.

"Wait a minute," I said, turning the newspaper over.

"Member of..." I read and then turned the paper over again, "...BYU track team died in car wreck." Much, much better. We were greatly relieved.

Terrible? Yes. It always makes me sad to learn that someone so young has passed away. But after standing there thinking that the entire track team was killed instantaneously? Well, this news was much better.*

*Please be sure I'm not trying to make light of the situation. She sounded really nice and I'm sure she'll be missed.

Swimming at long last

This morning we took Rachel swimming for the first time ever. She was pretty nervous at first, but she put on a brave smile and clung to Mom, quite stoic through it all. She did just fine!

I'm just going to stay here by the wall, okay?

I'm not too sure about this, Mom...

No, really, Mommy, this is deep enough!

We played motor boat, motor boat, which is one of Rachel's favorite games. She'd never played it in the water, though, and she liked spinning around and splashing the water. After she was warmed up and feeling a little braver, Rachel did some back floats (with some help from Mommy), blew some bubbles, kicked her legs, started a few splashing wars, and even went under the water a few times. She's a natural.

Splash, splash!

Her favorite thing to do was look up at the lifeguards and wave. We'd swim her up and down the pool and she'd have one hand hanging on for dear life and the other hand waving, constantly, at the lifeguards and her fellow swimmers.

We swam into the deep end and Rachel watched Daddy go off the diving board, which she thought was neat until he disappeared under the water. She looked at me, panicked. But soon enough Daddy popped back up to the surface and Rachel relaxed a little bit.

I guess this isn't so bad...

The only time she cried was when Mommy left her with Daddy and started to swim away. She acted as if it was the end of the world and her screams echoed off the walls! When I came back she gave me a hug like a vice grip and wouldn't let go, so I sang to her softly and stroked her hair until she stopped screaming. Then we played motor boat, motor boat again and made everything all better.


Unfortunately, we didn't last long in the pool before we were all too cold. Rachel, especially, was freezing, but I had my fair share of goosebumps, too.

Getting into dry clothes was an ordeal. We didn't even shower off because I couldn't quite figure out what to do with everything. (The nice part about this crypto bacteria is that they've installed a UV filter so they can use far less chlorine than they used to so even though we didn't rinse off, our skin doesn't feel all tight and flakey.)

I got Rachel dressed first because she was shivering and her teeth were chattering. I wrapped her up in her towel and she relaxed into my arms and smiled. She even let me dry off her hair, which is something she usually fights me over after bath time.

After she was dressed, though, I didn't have anywhere to put her while I got dressed, so I just sat her on a semi-dry part of the floor and gave her my wallet to play with. I got dressed as fast as I could, but by the time I was done she had crawled over to a puddle and splashed all over the place, completely soaking her pants. Oh, well, at least it's kind of warm outside now.

While we were in the locker room, Rachel saw a little girl who was about 3 years old. She started walking towards her, waving. And then she smiled really big and said, "Hi!" That surprised me! She's growing up so fast!

We decided to get a monthly pass to the OFC so that Rachel and I can go swimming in the afternoons and not feel bad about paying to get in and staying for only a half hour. It also means that we can go swimming with Daddy and play racquetball as much as we want (for the next 30 days, that is).

Wanted: Apratment in Quite Area with Palcony

I've been searching like mad for an apartment in Egypt. We've been praying that we can find a place that will fit both our needs and our budget. In fact, Andrew was praying a few nights ago, and of course it was very late and he wasn't thinking straight, and he said,

"Help us to find an apartment that will be the right size, and bless that we will also be able to find an apartment we can afford."

That was all he said about the apartment in his prayer, but after he said amen we both amended this with, "And bless that they can be the same apartment."

The housing market in Cairo seems to have skyrocketed recently and it has become more and more difficult to find a decent-sized apartment in our price range, but there have been a few that I've scouted out. It's easy to find things in our price range, and it's easy to find things that are big enough, it's just combining those two factors that is difficult.

Today I hit a jackpot of sorts. I think I found 10 apartments listed with the same agency, all of which fitted our qualifications. There were plenty listed that did not, but I searched through all of them and singled out these few. Andrew wrote to them. I've decided that I'm sick of writing to brokers and real estate agents because they rarely write back, and if they do, they say to just come into their office even though I specifically explain in each email that we are moving from America...

We're just keeping our fingers crossed that we'll be able to find an apartment before we leave, if not we'll be gypsies for awhile again, which was interesting enough when we were newlyweds...but I think the experience will be compounded dragging a baby along with us.

At any rate, I enjoy looking at all the real estate websites. There are many things that just didn't translate right, and I find them rather humorous. Many "apratments" are found in "quite" neighborhoods. A few even have "palconies." But my favorite one boasted this,

"No elevator. Apartment is on 7th floor but walking is good for heart."

No, thank you!

We live on the second floor of a building right now, without an elevator, and most times it is completely doable. Sometimes, though, it is downright treacherous. Like when I have Rachel and the stroller and library books and groceries to carry up the stairs. Ugh!

But it's not really a big deal. For us, here, now. Seven flights of stairs is a big deal. I wouldn't even cringe if it was an apartment on the third of fourth floor with no elevator, but the seventh?!

I can't imagine hauling all our luggage up all those stairs even once.

Eat Dirt!

Today was a relatively crazy day.

Rachel woke up at 3 AM. I got her calmed down and back to sleep and it felt like my head had barely hit the pillow when she woke up again at 5 AM. This time I gave in a nursed her and then put her back to bed and she woke up at 8 AM, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Oh, boy!

We went to playgroup, which lasted quite a long time. We didn't get home until 1:30!

Rachel nursed and fell asleep. I thought she was going to nap for a while since we'd been up half the night, but she woke up fifteen minutes after I put her down. This actually worked out nicely because we were able to go out for a walk with Val and Megan and their boys, Sawyer and Russell.

Rachel and Russell

She was pretty fussy during the walk though and just wanted to get out and play, so eventually we decided to just head back to the playground, hoping that it would be dry enough for the kids to play on. It hadn't rained too much today and the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds, so we set them loose.

All three of the kids are around a year old--Sawyer's 15 months, Russell just turned one, and Rachel will be one next month--so they were all walking around putting a little bit of this and a little bit of that in their mouths. Rocks, sticks, sand, leaves. You name it, it got tasted.

We got on the topic of disgusting things our babies have put in their mouths. I was sharing a particularly funny story about Heather's boy, Ian, who drank a cup of soapy water his little sister's poo-stained clothes had been soaking in and then decided, since the water tasted so horrible, that he would spray Shout on his tongue. We were having a good laugh when I noticed that Rachel had, once again, stooped over to pick something up.

"Speaking of kids putting things in their mouths..." I said as I walked over to examine what she had found.

Unfortunately she noticed me coming before I reached her and she quickly took a bite of what she was holding. I ran the last few steps to where she was standing and looked at what she was holding: a big clod of dirt.

She had bitten off such a big piece that she could hardly close her mouth around it, but she was rather intent on ingesting it and was trying to chew and swallow as much as she could before I could stop her.

Oddly enough, although she kept trying to eat the dirt, she would wrinkle up her face in disgust. Obviously she was at odds with herself. She'd already gotten this far and wanted to finish it, but it really didn't taste that good.

I picked her up and held her upside down while I scooped dirt out of her mouth. She helped by spitting a little out, but mostly by biting my fingers.

I could not believe the amount of dirt that came out of her mouth; probably close to a quarter cup. It was ridiculous. Dirt was falling out all over.

When I had gotten out all I could I flipped her right side up. She looked at me and smiled a big, muddy grin, and then she giggled and gagged.

"We're going to go home and get a drink of water," I announced.

Rachel was not too happy about going inside, but she was plenty happy to drink out of a big girl cup. She loves water, especially if it comes in a cup.

I gave her a few sips and wiped her face clean of mud, and then we headed back outside to play. We stayed at the playground for most of the day, coming in when it was time to make dinner.

I'm tired.

Chatting

My friend Bonnie and I are almost always "online." That doesn't mean that we're always at the computer. It simply means that we're logged onto a chatting system. Kind of like how the telephone is plugged into the wall all day but we don't sit there talking on it for hours. We definitely use chats like the phone.

We like to be able to talk to our husbands when they are online at work. Yesterday I used it to tell Andrew that I was having a hard day with Rachel and he was able to keep me a little more sane than I would have been otherwise.

This morning my computer chimed at me to let me know that someone was trying to chat with me. I was busy with Rachel, but Andrew was home still so he went to see who it was.

It was Bonnie.

"Do you know the details for Playgroup today?" she asked.

I had spoken with Heather on the phone a few minutes previously, before being lassoed by Rachel, and had already relayed the information to Andrew. We were supposed to go to the park, but it seems that every time we schedule a day at the park it either rains or snows, so we ended up moving playgroup, yet again, indoors.

Andrew told her where it would be.

"Oh, good!" said Bonnie, "This is Matt, btw."

BTW means "by the way," for anyone not familiar with chatting/texting. I know, it took me awhile to memorize all the shorthand, too.

"This is actually Andrew," Andrew said, "That's weird."

"lol," said Matt. That means "lots of laughs" or something like that. "That's funny. Bonnie was waiting for Nancy to get on so she could ask, but finally decided she'd just call, so..."

They ended their conversation since hey both had to get to work ASAP. That means "as soon as possible," but it's not unique to chatting, so you probably knew that.

By the time they ended their chat, Rachel had finished nursing and I had moved on to cutting my toenails.

"Bonnie's probably doing the same thing you are," he said.

"What, cutting her toenails?" I asked. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. "Oh, you mean she's probably busy with the baby...could be."

It would have been just too ironic if she had Matt talk to me because she was cutting her toenails, too. I have to get Rachel ready to go now. Maybe I'll ask Bonnie at playgroup...

TTYL!

Angry Eyes and Cookie Monster

Rachel was in a sour mood this morning. Mommy just couldn't do anything right. She didn't want to be held, but she didn't want me to put her down. She wanted me to read stories, but she kept closing the books before I was finished reading them. She wanted to go outside, but it was raining. She wanted to eat, but she wouldn't. She acted tired, but wouldn't go to sleep.

We even had some friends over and she kept on fussing the entire time we they were over. Usually she loves company, so that was quite strange.

I was almost thinking she had completely forgotten how to smile because all she did was yell and scream at me all morning. This was the closest thing I got to a happy face:

What are you looking at?

Charming, no? I was going crazy. It was like she'd packed her angry eyes and nothing else.

She finally went down for a nap shortly after 1:00. I was exhausted from having dealt with her temper tantrums all morning, so I, too, took a little nap. When I woke up, I decided that I needed a cookie.

The problem was we don't have any cookies in our house.

So I decided I would make some cookies.

The problem was that my arm is still incredibly sore from playing racquetball last night and I wasn't sure I'd be able to stir the dough.

So I hunted around for a recipe that suggested using a hand mixer.

Problem(s) solved.

I had almost finished making the dough when Rachel woke up from her nap. She seemed pretty happy for a while, and I was able to finish the dough and get some cookies in the oven before she got too fussy again.

Then I fed her lunch. She was still a little grumpy, but when she saw me getting cookies out of the oven and immediately perked up.

"Oooh!" she pointed.

"You have to finish lunch first," I said.

And so she finished up her mushy peas as fast as she could. I brought a cookie in from the kitchen.

"You can have a bite," I said, "But I'm not giving you the whole thing."

I held the cookie out to her, without letting go. She tried to yank it from my hands.

"Just a bite," I reminded her, "You can't have the whole thing!"

She opened her mouth grudgingly. I stuck the cookie inside and she bit down.

Before I could take the cookie away she had grabbed it with both hands and somehow managed to smash it so perfectly into each of her little fists that she hardly dropped a crumb.

And boy was she proud of herself!

I got mom's cookie, hey, hey, hey, hey!

Needless to say, I ended up letting Rachel keep that cookie and got a different one for myself, leaving her with the dilemma of getting the cookie from her fist to her mouth.


I never knew my baby was such a little cookie monster, but I was happy to get to trade in ol' grumpy eyes for a while.


Those smiles were nice while they lasted, but now the frowns are back and I'm sorely tempted to give her another cookie even though she doesn't deserve one. The rain has let up a bit, though, so I think we're going to try to play outside. We'll see how long that lasts...

Racquetball

Every once in a while Reid gets on a racquetball kick. He's a pretty dedicated racquetball player, but only sporatically.

So throughout our married life, Andrew has joined Reid in playing racquetball. They'll go quite regularly for a few weeks and then things will get busy and they won't go anymore. Often these kicks are spurred on by a visit from the Claypools.

Since they recently moved back to Orem for the summer it seems as though raquetball season has picked up again. This time I was invited along. It's the first time I've ever been invited.

I've been wanting to learn how to play because Andrew really likes playing and I was happy to have the opportunity to learn. Until I hit a few balls, that is.

The scrawny little stick I call my arm is so sore.

I played badminton in middle school and a bit in high school. I wasn't bad, either--I have a silver medal from a regional tournament. And badminton isn't wimpy for all of you snickering out there. It is an olympic sport, after all. Racquetball is not.

However, I dfound racquetball a little more physically challenging. Perhaps scary is the word I'm looking for. That ball just wizzes around and bounces off the ceiling, the walls, the racquets. I couldn't keep track of who was supposed to hit it when. And I spent a lot of time cowering in a corner trying to escape it. When I did hit the ball it never went as far as I wanted it to go, or even in the direction I was hoping for.

My arm just doesn't pack a lot of punch.

Badminton is much more my style. It's a little more graceful. I can leap in the air and barely tap the birdie and it will go soaring over onto my opponents side of the court. Very simple.

Who decided that you should share the court with your opponent? Obviously Mr. Sobek, but really was it that good of an idea? He based raquetball off of handball, squash, and tennis. And that's all well and fine, but did he ever wonder why tennis players are separated by a net?

Usually when you give someone a blunt object to hit things with you give them some space. It makes sense to have two people armed and dangerous if they're on the same side, working together, coreographing their every move. But to place enemies on the same side of a court with a metal racquet...I just don't see the logic. Perhaps that's why they encourage safety goggles.

I still plan to play again, though. I have to get good enough to be challenging for Andrew. We played two matches against each other. The scores were 15:2 and 15:1. He totally skunked me.

My only consolation is that it was my first time playing. And that he played against Casey and totally lost.

I'm not sure I'll ever get very good though. I'm not sure I was built for this sport. As Brother Elder said,

"What are you? 93 pounds, 6.5 foot frame?"

That's about right. I'm very aerodynamic. I can swim. I can run. I can dance. I can play badminton. Anything else is a little out of my legue. We'll see if racquetball and I will get along.

Blog updates

Our astute readers may have noticed a change in the URL at the top of your browser. Our blog is no longer found at heissfamily.blogspot.com -- it now has its own domain at www.heissatopia.com!

If you type the old address you'll get redirected to the new one, but the redirecting causes a little delay. If you want the best experience, change your links and bookmarks to www.heissatopia.com.

I'm also trying to make a few changes to our RSS feed and will let all you feed subscribers know if I change anything.

Be on the lookout for other big design changes here at our blog!

Cartwheeling

Rachel was an absolute gem during sacrament meeting yesterday.

She fell asleep in her stroller while Andrew and I were running around trying to get everything together. Sometimes she gets a little impatient to get going and if I put her in the stroller she calms down a bit because she knows that she's communicated her wants.

She sat very patiently for about five minutes and then she dozed off.


She was still sleep when we got to church so we decided to just wheel her into the back of the chapel. There were three baby blessings in our ward, however, so we ended up wheeling her halfway down the cultural hall.

Rachel slept clear through the first baby blessing, and then she sat on my lap and cuddled me in a post-nap stupor halfway through the passing of the sacrament until she snapped out of her drowsy state and almost grabbed the water tray out of Brother Robertson's hand.

Other than that little outburst, and a few squawks at other babies, she was the perfect angel child all through church. On the one hand, this was really nice because we could actually pay attention and didn't feel quite as distracting as usual. On the other hand, it meant that Rachel was rather hyper when we got home since she kept all her wiggles in during church.

We went to the park to help get those wiggles out before bedtime. At first Rachel just played by herself--sampling every other piece of grass, chasing little fluffies floating in the air, and finding random bits of garbage--during which time Andrew was giving me an Arabic lesson.

Eventually Rachel got bored and wandered over to find us, successfully wedging herself in the crossbars of the picnic table we were sitting at. With a few tears and tugs we got her out and she and Daddy went to wrestle in the grass.

I'm not much of a wrestler but I used to do gymnastics and I had a sudden urge to turn a cartwheel. It's been a while since I've done that and I was feeling so summery...so I turned a cartwheel.

Rachel clapped her hands.

"Do two in a row!" Andrew urged me.

So I turned another cartwheel, and another, and another. Then I did some round offs, some more cartwheels, and some forward and backward rolls (aka somersaults). I was afraid to try anything more challenging since I really haven't done any gymnastics in years, but what I did was exhilarating and I felt young and energetic again.

Even Andrew tried a somersault, but we found out that this big, strong man, who will jump off cliffs and fly on airplanes, suffers a little from what he calls "suppressed vertigo." He's afraid that he'll get stuck upside down while turning over and won't be able to get right way up.

"You're on the ground. You're not going to get stuck," I tried to reason with him, to no avail.

Since he wouldn't try anymore and Rachel was getting a little sleepy, we packed up our stuff and tried to put Rachel in the stroller. But she was still much too wound up to sit still long enough to buckle her in, so I ended up carrying her about halfway home until she squirmed to get out of my arms.

We put her down and let her push the stroller. That meant we had to walk very s-l-o-w-l-y.

It also meant that it gave us more time to notice our complaining bodies.

"Wow," I noted, scratching my legs, "I'm all itchy from the grass."

"Me, too," said Andrew, giving his arm a good rubdown.

"And I think I'm kind of dizzy from all those cartwheels."

"Yeah," said Andrew humbly. I know he was thinking about how dizzy he was from trying to do a somersault, but he didn't want to say that because he had failed so miserably.

"Do you remember when we could play outside in the grass all day?" I asked.

"Yeah," Andrew agreed, "Without getting itchy."

"And be able to turn a hundred cartwheels without getting dizzy," I added.

Rachel was busy pushing her stroller as fast as she could, which wasn't very fast. She didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from playing outside. In fact, she pushed that stroller past seven houses without stopping to scratch once, although she did make a stop to grab a handful of soil from someone's garden (sorry, neighbor!).

I feel so old! It's my birthday month, so I guess I'm entitled to be worrying about how old I am. The sad thing is that I'm not even that old...I just can't do the things I could do when I was ten anymore.

Today I turned a few more cartwheels while Rachel and I were out. Perhaps turning cartwheels will turn back the clock... Oh, to be young again!

Hooray! It's boring!

"What should we do for FHE?" I asked Andrew 20 minutes ago when he got home for work.

"I don't know. What were you thinking of?"

"Well, I thought we could take Rachel to the temple, but it's closed on Mondays so I don't think we'd be able to get close enough for her to understand what we're looking at."

We looked at each other for a few seconds. Since he wasn't coming up with any other ideas, I decided to share mine.

"Or maybe we could go swimming!" I said.

"Well, I was thinking of something a little more boring," he said.

Not the best way to present an idea, really. Oh, I know! Let's do something really boring! That'll get a lot of people voting for you.

"Like what?" I asked, nonplussed, of course.

"Like we can get some stuff ready to go to Egypt. We need electrical cords and things,"

Oddly enough, he convinced me. It wasn't the stodginess of the activity as much as the practicality that convinced me. After all, we only have 71 days until we leave and we have so much left to do!

The closer we get to our departure date, the more and more stressed out I will become. I get so stressed out it's completely debilitating.

When we moved to Jordan 2 years ago Andrew did most of the packing. It wasn't as if I didn't try, it's just that I got so overwhelmed. I would sit by a box and just cry. I was so scared to move halfway around the world and there was so much more to do, so of course the best thing to do was to take a nap.

"What's wrong?" Andrew asked, patting my back awkwardly. He hates it when I cry.

"There's so much to do," I sobbed.

"Why don't you just go lie down?" he suggested.

"Are you sure?" he nodded at me, "Okay..."

And when I woke up the house had magically been packed up and we were all ready to go.

That's probably the same state I'll be in when we are getting down to the last few days here, so it's probably best that I do as much as I can now. We can always go swimming later.