Duke Graduation Ceremony (May 12)

Andrew defended his dissertation on July 21, 2017; we moved on July 24, and after arriving in Utah he had a couple of weeks to submit his revisions. He officially graduated on September 1, but his diploma didn't arrive in the mail until September 24 (which was quite a while ago).

September 24, 2017

So it felt a little odd to fly back to Durham to attend the graduation ceremony in May. We feel at once like we've just left (it hasn't even been a year!) and that graduate school was eons ago (it's been almost a year!); whichever way we happened to be feeling at any given moment, it was wonderful to go back to North Carolina (if only for a few days). 

Little lies and language learning

"Benny peed in his pants!" Zoë tattled (somewhat triumphantly—because she really had him this time!) after flinging the back door open.

"He did what?!" I groaned.

He hollered at her to get back outside, "Zoë!"

She ran back outside and he told her a few things and she poked her head back inside to announce sheepishly, "Benny did not pee in his pants."

Clearly this was a matter that needed to be sorted out, but I certainly didn't want to be the one to do it. I was tired. It had been quite a trying day and—did I mention this?—my husband was no help (because he was in Sweden). I sighed heavily (it's yogic) and went outside.

"Hi, Mom," Benjamin said, meeting me at the door. "I'm going to tell you The Truth."

"Great," I said. "That's exactly what I want."

"The truth is: I didn't pee in my pants."

"Fabulous. Then tell me what you did do."

"I just did."

End of the school year

Benjamin had his last day of school on May 18—which means he's been out of school for nearly a month already! He was quite excited for the end of the school year, mostly because he thought he'd immediately move into grade one (he was obsessing about "practicing making [his] lunch" so that he could be ready for the big day). He was a little let down when he realized he had the whole summer to kill before he'd get to move up a grade.

Our rising first grader

No good can come from bad

I have a million other things to write about but I feel like today would be a good day for Flashback Friday to end its hiatus (it's Monday, though, so perhaps we'll call today Memory Monday) because I've been searching through the archives and though I referenced this story in passing I never really told the story.

Certain current events, however, have made this story seem even more harrowing than I think it felt at the time. I was terrified and angry at the time, yet also felt this sense of control because what was happening felt too ludicrous to be allowed. Surely the border control officer was joking. The very idea was laughable; no one in their right mind would allow it. So of course it couldn't happen, wouldn't happen.

And it didn't happen. Not to me.

But apparently it is happening!

And perhaps I'll talk about that a little bit, but first, the story:

In 2009 we were living in Egypt—a full-blown dictatorship at the time—and my friend Jaehee (a Korean citizen) had to exit the country in order to renew her visa. Since her husband and my husband were both in the middle of their master's degree programs and couldn't take time off of school right then (and, as American citizens, had the option to renew their visas without leaving the country), I told Jaehee that I would be happy to go on a trip out of the country with her. Though I didn't have to leave Egypt to renew my visa, either, I'm always up for an adventure!

We researched the safest/easiest/cheapest place for two women—and one toddler, because 21 month-old Rachel would also be joining us—to fly to and settled on Greece. So we booked our tickets, arranged some hotels, and jetted off across the Mediterranean Sea for a wonderful Hellenic holiday.

Benjamin is six!

Technically he's six years old and one week (and, frankly, we're simply happy he's made it this far into his seventh year because this week has been quite the week).

A true southern boy (who still asks nearly daily to return to North Carolina (and then Zoë will pipe up, "My old house is in Norf Ca-o-wina!")), Benjamin requested chicken and waffles for his birthday dinner, which was delicious for all and very messy for some.

Alexander was covered from head to toe in strawberry gunk, so while I gave him a bath and Grandpa did the dishes, Andrew took the big kids into the basement to play the Wii. "If you can help clear the table," he said as if it was a real sacrifice on his part, "I guess I can play a round of MarioKart with you guys."

Ordinarily Alexander isn't a huge fan of being cleaned off, but he did enjoy having the tub to himself. So maybe bathing isn't what he finds so awful. Perhaps it's his bathing companions...

Alexander in the bath (definitely not Benjamin; Benjamin had hair (glorious hair))

Millennial Falcon

This year Benjamin wanted a Star Wars cake. More specifically, he wanted a reprise of rainbow Darth Vader cake from his fourth birthday, but my cake stuff is still packed away so instead he settled on a Millennium Falcon cake. Andrew assured me it would be super easy—"It's just a circle with two points sticking out," he said, ignoring the finer details of the cake. 

I'm such a Star Wars luddite that my children kept calling me out for saying Millennial Falcon rather than Millennium Falcon. Apparently this is an important distinction. Rachel even pulled up a meme to mock me with:

source: https://pics.me.me/millennial-falcon-funny-the-millennial-flacon-12166990.png

Thanks for that, Rachel.

I keep calling it the Millennial Falcon just to make her roll her eyes at me and moan, "Moooooom!" in that exasperated way only a preteen can manage.

This boy

Six years ago, on a beautiful Sunday like this one, my sweet little Benjamin came into the world in a flurry of excitement and panic. Far more panic than excitement, truthfully. In fact, I'm not even sure it was a beautiful day because I spent the entire day crying in the hospital. 

Andrew is reading over my shoulder as I type this and he assures me it was a beautiful day. From my memories it looked pretty okay through the window. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, birds were chirping, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was beautiful.

I remember.

Because I remember staring out the window and wondering how such an awful thing could be happening on such a beautiful day.

What I don't remember is how many times I said no.

"You're in labour," they told me.

"No, no, no," I insisted. "No. No, I'm not. No, no, no."

"Sweetie, you are going to have this baby today."

"No. No. No." I pleaded. "Please! Just make it stop!"

"You've progressed too far. Nothing is working. The baby is coming."

"No, please, no! It's too soon. No. No. No."

I hovered between shock and denial for what felt like hours, shivering uncontrollably beneath piles of heated blankets. Alas, no amount of begging or bargaining will stop the inevitable and I did go on to have a baby that day.

I had a beautiful baby on that beautiful day:

Benjamin on his literal birth day

Red Ledges

We've just finished our first week of summer break (by the way, the kids are out of school (I haven't written about that yet because I'm drowning in writing fodder)) so to celebrate making it out alive, we went on a family adventure. 

I feel like we haven't done many family adventures lately (I realize we just went to Idaho and then the girls and I went up to Canada and then Andrew and I went to North Carolina...shhhhhh) because we've been so stressed out over living life in limbo. We still have no solid plan for the future so we're embracing our back up plan, which will include another year of job hunting. While we're grateful for the work we have for the coming year, something a little more steady would be nice. 

Part of embracing our back up plan is reinstituting weekend adventures (you know, when Andrew's not off at conferences/interviews). So last weekend we hiked the Y (obviously) and this evening we went up Diamond Fork Canyon to do a little hiking at Red Ledges.

Red Ledges is like a worm hole from the Wasatch Front to Southern Utah—complete with red rocks, greenery, and blue sky! 

Our goal was to find the little arch we'd read about, but apparently I didn't read about it took closely because we ended up first taking the trail that heads into the canyon, which was surprisingly strenuous (my opinion of the trail was probably tainted by the fact that I decided to take a turn packing the baby around and because I didn't know where all the cliffs were on the trail and a certain someone (*cough* Benjamin *cough*) kept scampering up ahead of everyone on the path.

Anyway, before we got to the strenuous part, we had spent some time enjoying the red walls of the canyon for a while.

Here's Miriam showing off her new haircut:

Hiking the Y

I thought, for some reason, that we'd last hiked the Y in 2012 but my sources tell me it was actually 2011, so 7 years (and three children) later, we decided it was high time to ascend again and made The Y our inaugural hike of 2018. (I should probably mention that Rachel and Miriam hiked it with Uncle Patrick in October of last year). 

Here's our crew (minus Daddy and Alexander) before heading up the mountain:

Do you read me?

We've had a few moon boots incidences this week in which we've completely misinterpreted what the other has said.

******

One day Grandpa had taken our van to the temple because Andrew had the car and Karen needed her car. Andrew was surprised when he got home to find the van gone but his family at home. I was in the kitchen working on dinner.

"Where's the van?" he asked when he got inside.

"In the backyard," I replied.

"You're...eerily calm about that," he said.

I looked at him funny.

He looked at me funny.

Crickets chirped.

"I'm typically pretty calm when the kids are playing nicely in the backyard..." I explained.

"Oh!" he said. "I didn't know you were talking about the kids!"

"Well, what were you talking about then?" I asked. "You're the one who brought up the kids!"

"Did not! I was talking about the van. It's not in the garage."

"Oh!" I laughed. "Your dad took the van. I thought you said, 'Where's the Benj?' No wonder you thought I was going crazy!"