Labour Day hike to Stewart Falls

“Wake up, wake up! We’re going hiking today!” Rachel shrieked and excitedly bounded onto our bed wearing pyjamas…and shoes.

“We’re not going hiking yet! No one’s ready to go—everyone’s in bed still. What time is it?”

“But you said we would go hiking today!” said Rachel, her voice rising shrilly with every word.

“Shhhhh! We will, we will. Be quiet, or you’ll wake the…never mind.”

Miriam had already heard the ruckus her sister was causing and started chirping from her crib to let us know she was ready to get up, too,“Dadadadada!” So much for sleeping in on this long weekend.

It was a long morning but we all lived through it and were very ready to go hiking when the early afternoon rolled around (especially Rachel).

Love your (hypothetical) brother?

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Rachel’s brother, Scott, before. In a nutshell, he doesn’t exist. That doesn’t stop Rachel from talking to him/about him, though. She kind of gave him up a while ago after I told her that I really don’t appreciate it when she tells people that her mommy has a baby brother in her tummy. That’s how rumours get started. So she stopped telling us what Scott’s having for breakfast or what colour he was wearing on a given day.

In fact, Scott had all but disappeared until this morning.

“Mommy, will you have another baby some day?”

Flashback Sunday: Stupid Moms and Preschool

While enjoying a nice Sunday dinner, courtesy of Karen who gets home from church a few hours before we do, we were chatting about the upcoming week. Tomorrow’s a holiday—Labour Day—so we have some fun things planned and then on Tuesday Rachel is going to try out a preschool at a neighbour’s house, just around the corner from our house. Exciting times.

“Who will be my teacher?” she asked.

“Her name is Mrs. O,” Grandma told her, “And she’s very smart!”

“Oh, my mom’s not,” Rachel felt the need to point out before carrying on with the rest of the conversation like she hadn’t said anything the least bit offensive…or hilarious.

Layton Reunion

We went up to my Uncle Bob’s house yesterday for a family reunion. My Aunt Tami was in town for the BYU vs. Washington game (among other things) and it was decided that it would be a good time to get all of my dad’s siblings together with my grandparents. Naturally this included grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.

Rachel was so excited to play with her cousins. Kelli brought matching shirts for all her kids so they could take family pictures and Rachel wanted so badly to be in the pictures with them, which is odd because recently she hasn’t ever wanted me to take pictures of her. There was plenty of picture-taking and cousin-playing going on.

Running-Libraries-Public Transportation

On Thursday I ran to the library with the girls in the jogging stroller. The distance I covered roundtrip was roughly 10.5 km and I averaged a 12-minute mile, which sounds pretty slow unless you know I was pushing a 28 lbs stroller holding 50 lbs of children and hauling 10 lbs of library books and 10+ lbs of other sundry items (diaper bag, lunch, water, and a snowsuit we picked up at Savers on our way home). In total I was pushing close to 100 lbs, which closely approximates my avoirdupois, in front of me.

Not about busses this time…

I may as well admit it—we are using government-funded insurance. Not for us, but for the girls. Andrew doesn’t qualify for state-funded insurance because he has a student health plan available to use so is required to do that, which is fine because that’s only about $97 per month. To add the girls and me onto the plan would bring our premium to $315.50 per month.

Without being too frank about our finances, I can tell you that the maximum gross income a family our size can have while maintaining eligibility for government-funded health insurance is $3,675. We don’t make anywhere near that amount per month, even when Andrew was working full-time (without benefits, of course) this summer we were shy of that amount by at least a grand. Now that the semester has begun Andrew has had to drastically cut back his working hours. He went to the MPA orientation two weeks ago and this past week was the first week of real classes. He’s gone before the girls and I get up in the morning and comes home in time for dinner before sequestering himself in the office to do homework. Rachel has already asked why Daddy lives at school instead of at home so if that’s any indication of how the semester is going to be…well, yeah. It will be tough.

I’m working, too, though not very much. Before we had children I worked approximately 40 hours per week—not all at the same job, of course, because no one ever seems to be hiring for full-time positions—but now that we have children I’m lucky if I work 40 hours in a month. Being a work-from-home/stay-at-home mom is a tough job but we figure it is worth my staying home to avoid child care costs, which can be quite astronomical. Also, so that I can raise our children. That’s good, too.

Miriam at 10 months

I have no statistics for this girl since we haven’t taken her to the doctor since the nebulizer incident. I’m fairly confident she’s healthy and growing but, good news, we finally have insurance for the girls so I can take them to the doctor again. Now I just have to get around to making appointments.

$2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point

Throughout the month of August Thanksgiving Point was doing a promotion allowing patrons to enter any attraction for only $2 instead of the ghastly exorbitant amount it usually costs. Since the offer is only good through August and since today is the last day of August, Grandma invited the girls and me out on a date.

It was fun to have a day out, even though we weren’t the only ones to have the idea. Somehow we figured that since school had already started it wouldn’t be too crowded, but it was a complete zoo of strollers, mothers, and preschoolers. That was fine. We had fun despite the crowd.

Busy Sunday

Today was one of those busy Sundays. Andrew and I both spoke during sacrament meeting in our ward—my mom and Karen helped out with the girls, which was so amazing of them to do, not only because Miriam was such a handful today but, because both my mom and Karen had already sat through three hours of church at their own wards. Karen and Reid both spoke in their ward today and Emily played the cello for the special musical number.

As a finale to our Sabbath day, my brother Patrick was set apart as a service missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’ll be volunteering his time and talent down at the LDS Motion Picture Studio for 12 months.

My mom and dad, auntie Judy and uncle Wally, brother David, sister Josie, and Andrew and I all came to support him.

I thought it was funny that my mom and I both wore the same skirt today, though hers is orange and mine is blue. Josie has one, too—hers is purple—but she didn’t wear it today. My mom got them in South Africa when she was there for a conference last summer before she visited us in Egypt. If I was Andrew I would have either died of embarrassment on the spot or ran home as quickly as I could to change my clothes. But I’m not Andrew, so instead my mom and I just laughed that we wore the same skirt on the same day—besides, they’re different enough that I’m sure no one noticed except for us. And Josie.

We also got to visit with my mom’s cousin Marie, her husband Steve, and their son, Eric. They live in Ohio so we don’t get to see them very often—the last time was at my cousin Mary’s wedding nearly 5 years ago—but Eric will be attending BYU starting on Monday so they were in town “dropping him off” at university.

It was definitely one of those Sundays that makes you wonder where the phrase “day of rest” came from…

Rexburg

Andrew was worried about getting lost in Rexburg so I made sure to have addresses for all the attractions we wanted to see. Turns out that in Rexburg addresses are for pussies. We could see the temple long before we arrived in town and easily found it from the highway.