Soccer, Hiking, Bird Songs

Last night was Rachel's first soccer practice of the season—and her life. She was so nervous and excited for it.

Ballet always seemed to be a thing she did so that Miriam could do it and it was an expensive activity for her to not have her heart in it. Miriam loved it (and I kind of want to sign her up again except that it's so darn hard to swallow the cost) but Rachel simply never did.

Then she asked us if she could play soccer instead. I looked around and found a league that plays for three months (one practice a week plus sporadic games on Saturdays) and costs $75. They even supply a uniform (though we still have to find shin pads and perhaps some cleats (though I'm leaning toward just getting a nice new pair of runners because that's an option (a much more practical option))). Of course, the coaches are volunteer coaches, but I don't think that's a terrible thing.

Andrew and I were both shocked at how inexpensive it was—like manna from heaven after forking out wads of cash for a semester of ballet classes.

Rachel was so cute running around on the field. She kept stealing the ball from her own teammates and heading off into the middle of nowhere with the ball, but she'll get the hang of what she's supposed to do.

It was only her first time playing but she's already dreaming of making the olympic team one of these days. A small city league with a volunteer coach is a good place as any to embark on fulfilling that dream, I think. And if the dream changes along the way I won't be too heartbroken. I'm more in it for the fun (and the ensuing exhaustion running around for an hour causes my little non-sleeper).

While I sat on the bleachers and read A Short Stay in Hell Andrew took Miriam and Benjamin to the nearby playground where they had so much fun they can hardly wait for next Monday.

It made our FHE schedule a little harried but I think we'll manage for the next few months.

Elephant ears

Rachel's got a school performance coming up next week. She was a little bummed out that Naanii was here two weeks before the performance and that Grandma won't arrive until two weeks after it, but she'll get over it.

The entire grade one cohort has been working on the show—Welcome to the Jungle—since the beginning of the school year. Each class was assigned an animal to be—monkey, giraffe, hippo, or elephant—and each student is responsible for coming up with their own costume. Rachel's class are all elephants and for months now Rachel's been bugging me about making an elephant hat for/with her. We finally started it on one of our snow days last month.

I thought about crocheting the actual hat part for her but then I realized that I would just have to do that part myself (since I haven't had the patience to teach her to crochet yet) so instead we made it on the knifty knitter. She ended up doing quite a bit of it herself.

A few days ago I finally sat down and made some ears for it and let it sit for a while before picking it up again last night when in a fit of passion (or something) I made a trunk and eyes for it and put the whole thing together.

Rachel was quite pleased with the finished product when she saw it this morning. All the kids were, actually. Here's a picture of Miriam modeling the hat this afternoon (and yes—she wore that outfit all day (and yes—we left the house on more than one occasion)):

Spring Party

In stark contrast to yesterday's ugly ice storm, today was beautiful! Bright blue skies and balmy temperatures—it looks like the weather's back on track. Winter certainly was tedious this year. Although I'm quite certain I can count the measly number of times it snowed on one hand, each snowstorm shut things down so completely that it made winter seem...long. We're left with nothing to do but sit at home and stare out the windows at the angry grey skies. Or play in the snow. But even that gets old after a while.

When we woke up this morning with sunshine streaming through the windows we could tell spring was on its way. The girls asked if we could have a "Spring Party!" so we planned one.

First we played outside. The kids rode bikes while I hung up some laundry and Andrew surveyed the yard for potential projects. Then we loaded the kids into the van for a surprise outing to a new little museum nestled inside an old train/bus depot downtown. It's called the Durham History Museum Hub (or some combination of those terms).

We got sidetracked by the old railroad before hitting the museum (I'm on board with turning it into either a pedestrian path or for increased mass transit as this website suggests):

Literary reflections

When Benjamin was in the hospital he'd often be swaddled with his hands up by his face. Yesterday he fell asleep with his hands clasped together and I caught a little glimpse of the baby he used to be (and realized what a wonderful boy he's turned into).

Goodbye to Naanii

School was back on schedule on Wednesday morning. My mom, Benjamin, and I drove Rachel to school in the morning so that Naanii could get a VIP tour of Rachel's classroom. Her teacher had mentioned (when I checked her out early on Friday so that we could leave to get my mom in Georgia) that Rachel should bring her grandmother to spend the day in her class and Rachel thought that was a great idea.

But then she only had a half day of school on Monday and no school on Tuesday and my mom flew out Wednesday afternoon, so a quick romp around the room it was.

A snow day with Naanii

There's a saying down here that when it thunders in winter it will snow ten days later (at least, I'm assuming it's a southern thing—I'd never heard it before moving here and to a certain extent it does seem to be true). I can't remember if we had a thunder storm ten days before Monday—but we did have a little thunderstorm on the morning of February 19th, twelve days before the snow.

With school being cancelled, Rachel was free to spend the day with us, which was a rather nice surprise—especially since the school district voted to waive the three snow days (including Tuesday) that we were supposed to make up. Apparently we're on track for educational hours per school year without those days, though we're in for another storm tonight/tomorrow and I imagine schools will be closed on Friday. At least we're due to receive more snow/ice than we got on Tuesday.

Our dusting of snow was pretty pathetic and hardly warranted a full day off school (though like I said, we were happy to have Rachel home to spend some time with my mom).

Here's Rachel and Naanii posing in the snow we got:

Monday: Duke and FHE

A couple of weeks before my mom came out I was complaining about snow days (brace yourself; more complaints are coming) and she commented the following on one of my pictures:

How jealous am I? 0%. Two weeks from now...none of the white stuff, okay?

February 12 at 10:26pm

And I told her not to worry. She'd coming out in March. It doesn't snow in March. Snow in March would be ridiculous.

Famous. Last. Words.

We had a grim forecast this week, starting with sleet, freezing rain, and snow—something dubbed a "wintery mix"—on Monday. We headed to Duke campus on Monday morning, anyway, determined to see the chapel, the library, the gardens, and so forth. Unfortunately, when the forecast said rain it meant rain and it poured on us.

We sought refuge in the chapel where we were lucky enough to meet up with a high school choir that was touring from Delaware. They'd made it to the chapel a little early so left to tour some other places before returning to the chapel to sing so we followed their lead and left to visit the library.

Cumming, Georgia

We stayed overnight at the Bestor's house on Saturday. They're another family we met in Cairo (they're members of our church) and we haven't seen them for about four years so it was fun to visit with Sister Bestor and Megan, who is the only child still at home.

The past couple of years have been so fraught with tragedy for so many people close to us. Brother Bestor passed away last September (2012) and we were very tempted to go to the funeral (after all it's only a six hour drive) but weren't in a financial position to make a trip like that at the time (when I say we had no money when we first moved here that is not an over-exaggeration—we spent all our money moving out here and didn't see a penny of a paycheck until the last day of September). It was so good to see Sister Bestor, though my mom says she looks happy on top with a layer of sadness underneath (which is probably true).

About eighteen months ago, Brother Bestor persuaded Sister Bestor to get a dog "for Megan," who has been asking for a dog for years and years. I think, though, that he knew things were going to get rather lonely in the house for Sister Bestor, though, and that he knew the dog would serve as a loyal friend for her. The dog seems to love her to pieces, she sleeps in her bedroom, she gets so excited when she gets home.

Unfortunately for my girls, they don't like dogs. Fortunately for the dog, her name is Sadie and my girls have a soft spot in their hearts for Sadie-dogs (Auntie Emily and Uncle Morgan have a dog named Sadie). Unfortunately, Sadie is still very much a hyper little puppy and when she stands on her back legs she's as tall as Benjamin. Fortunately, Benjamin loved her the minute he saw her and he's much shorter than his sisters anyway so the dog didn't seem so tall.

Puppet Museum and Centennial Olympic Park

My mom was staying at the Embassy Suites, across the street from the Hyatt where her conference was held (the Music Library Association, in case you're wondering). We weren't sure where to park so we parked in the strip mall next door and called my mom. She walked out to meet us with a whole entourage of fans: Janet, Amanda, Doug, and Janice. It was fun to see everybody, even if it was only for a little while.

We loaded up my mom's things, as well as Amanda's, and headed off to see some sites before leaving Atlanta. Naanii managed to squeeze in the back seat between Rachel and Miriam's car seats. They were happy to both get to sit beside her.

Our first stop was the Center for Puppetry Arts museum. Andrew found it while looking for relatively inexpensive activities at relatively nearby locations. Atlanta boasts the largest indoor marine habitat in the world—the Atlanta Aquarium—but with a sticker price of over $100 for our family to visit it didn't feel worth it with our limited time. And...I also watched Blackfish recently and I'm not sure I could have stomached seeing all these marine animals so far from their natural environment so soon after watching that film. Anyway, the puppet museum only cost $30 for our family and the kids probably had as much fun (and experienced just as much fright) as they would have had at the aquarium.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library

On Saturday morning the girls were very excited to find that Jennifer, our hostess, had supplied sugary cereal for breakfast. Her boys have been enjoying trying all sorts of American things since this is their first time living stateside and she knew that our girls only get sugary cereal on their birthdays so she though this would be a fun treat for everyone—that's what vacations are for!

After breakfast we headed out to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum where we learned all sorts of things about President Carter. He wasn't very popular during his presidency for whatever reason ("completely ineffectual," according to some) but he's certainly done some amazing things throughout his lifetime. Andrew and I are kind of fans of his. We read his books and things like that.

I don't remember if it was me or Jennifer who suggested going there (we'd chatted about several ideas) but when I asked Andrew what he thought about going to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library he got a gleamy look in his eye and I knew that's where we'd be going.

It was fun to learn more about President Carter because I actually didn't know much about him. And I've actually only read one of his books (but it was a good one). Andrew's read more of his writing and has studied some of the efforts of the Jimmy Carter Center so he was a bit more knowledgeable about things. Andrew has also had US History drummed into his head for his entire growing up years and I...missed out on that...so he usually knows a bit more about presidents than I do.

So apparently Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. There is a lot of peanut paraphernalia in the museum. Like a lot a lot. I actually really like that he's not a professional politician—and perhaps that explains his "ineffectualness"—but honestly I think he was a problem solver and a kind and determined man. I could tell he felt badly about how his presidential years went (he called it his "forced retirement" in the little video they showed (which, incidentally, Martin Sheen narrated)) and I wish he could have had another shot at it because perhaps he could have done more. But I also admire what he's done with his post-presidential affluence and influence—far better than painting selfies in the shower (and I say that with a chuckle because Bush has done some good things and will do more good things with the power that comes with his title and experience, I'm sure (and because there's nothing wrong with painting)).

Anyway, I think the little kids—Miriam, Benjamin, and Abraham—enjoyed the little submarine model the best. The older kids enjoyed playing there as well but I think they liked the computer-based welfare "missions" at the end of the museum the best. Here they are playing in the submarine: