First day of school for me!

Not last week but the week before, I had my graduate student orientation. 

Because I'm such an anxious driver, Andrew is training Rachel to take me to campus (though I'm also trying to take as many courses online as I can so that I limit the number of days I need to go to campus). It's quite the commute. 

Last week I had my first day of school, but only for online coursework.

Today I had my first day on campus. Here I am by one of the many bulldogs on campus:

Birthday Balloons I

We are hopelessly behind in celebratory events this year. I really didn't think the summer would end up being as hard as it was...but then pneumonia happened...and it ended up being as hard as it was.

That said, for FHE we finally finished up writing our birthday balloons for everyone.

Yes, it took us May, June, July, and August to finally write birthday balloons for Zoë, Benjamin, me, and Rachel. We figured we should finish them up before the next wave of birthdays hits us in a month.

Here's for Zoë:

From Benjamin:

You're nine! That's 3² and so old. You are a good swimmer and sister and just an amazing person altogether. 

amaZing

Origami cadet

Elated to be 9

I love you!

Kinda blah moments

Things aren't so terrible over here. 

One of the fans of our air conditioners went out on one of the hottest days of the year (as these things tend to go) and it has been doing its best to chug along while we waited for a part to come in. Today we finally got the call that our AC people have both the fan part and the vent for the heater (which evidently had broken at some point, which means that our heater would have been venting into our house instead of outside) and said they could come this afternoon.

But our road is being repaved right now—a project that has been in the works for quite some time now...nearly two weeks? First they scraped up really broken sections and repaired those before scraping up the entire road (which I am sure is logical for some reason) and then they laid down a layer of rocks and tar and they're just now getting around to surfacing it. And I get that these things take time, but we just never know when they're going to let us use the road and when they won't. 

Our neighbour up the street missed a prenatal appointment last week because they wouldn't let her out of her driveway. I couldn't go to campus on Tuesday because our cul-de-sac was off limits.

And our road was also off limits today when the AC guys wanted to come (as well as when we came home from our homeschool "not back to school" party at the pool—we had to park at a friend's house about half a mile away from our house and then walk home across all our neighbour's lawns).

Fortunately, the air conditioner is still working even if it isn't running at full throttle.

Unfortunately, our washing machine also decided to give up the ghost last night (or the night before?).

Glory, glory hall-lelujah!

When Andrew and I met with our stake president (President Jack Christianson) before getting married, he drew out what I can only describe as football diagrams to counsel us on how to...be...when we were married. He was a quarterback at Weber State University, so he talked about football quite a bit. He told us that we were a team and should be together:

X X

And that sometimes, as children come along, he'd see that team kind of split apart on the pew at church:

X o X

And then:

X o o o X

Which he felt was a real shame. He preferred to see a couple sit together with their children beside them (rather than letting children "push" them apart):

X X o o o

His counsel was to always be a team. And, I mean, we tried that for a few years. It was fairly easy with Rachel. She'd sit on one lap or the other and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. Then Miriam came along and there was still a lap for either child and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. 

By now we've about given up on following this advice because while it may be nice to sit beside each other, it isn't logical, and isn't representative of our unity as a couple at all. Besides, Andrew is so often the organist and for a time I was the chorister, so that means he's up on the stand—or Miriam is up on the stand—or I'm up on the stand. And our current ward has hardly any deacons so Andrew often ends up passing the sacrament with Benjamin before sitting down. 

So we usually end up sitting somewhat like this:

z a N p r b A m

And then by the time Andrew comes to sit down with us, Phoebe is ready to sit on his lap instead of sitting by mine, so we end up like this:

z a N r b A p m

So instead of looking like a tidy football play we look like we're kind of struggling with the alphabet. But I think that's okay because although it's not bad advice (and may even have been good advice), it's not necessarily practical advice. President Christianson himself rarely got to sit beside his wife because he was always on the stand, right?

Plus, we started to hear other advice along the way. One of our bishops (or stake presidents? or was a general authority?), for example, mentioned that he liked to see fathers carrying out screaming babies instead of the mothers. Andrew wanted to help out with our babies more but they were all such momma's babies that they wouldn't sit with him unless they were far enough away from me. That meant Andrew had to be farther away from me so he could wrangle babies and I could enjoy the meeting.

What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that there are times and seasons to things. One day, perhaps, Andrew and I will sit side by side on the pew again. Maybe...if we're lucky...

Lego-tionary for FHE

Benjamin was in charge of our family night lesson on Monday. He had us create scenes from The Book of Mormon out of Lego. While some people were thrilled with the assignment bestowed upon them by a slip of paper they drew out of Benjamin's hands (Andrew scoffed, "Oh, this will be easy!") I was...less thrilled.

But I managed.

We had ten minutes to create our scenes. Excuse the messy basement...this room is constantly a disaster. The kids have been setting up the doll house for The Borrowers to move in (we just finished reading the book) and there is Lego mess and Play-doh mess and fort building mess and...we do clean down there. It just is a very played-in area of the house.

Anyway, here's Phoebe sharing her creation which was "an airplane with all of these guys":

Firetrucks and butterflies

This morning Andrew took Rachel and Benjamin to the doctor for their post-diagnosis check-up and the doctor determined that...they both still have pneumonia. Rachel, like Alexander (who is doing just great at this point), has it in her left lung. Benjamin has it in his right lung. But it seems like the antibiotics did their work and the kids will just have to cough it out. So lots of (generic) Mucinex for them!

I had the much more pleasant task of taking the little kids to the library (we left Miriam at home to work on some things in a quiet house). Our books were due and I had several holds waiting for me. 

The fire station is next to the library and we could see from the parking lot that they were working on one of the trucks—they had the ladder extended and were greasing it. Phoebe is the one who saw it. First she saw the crane from across the street and said, "Oooh! Loot! A tane!" And then she saw the ladder of the firetruck (which was horizontal) and said, "Oooh! Loot! A boat!"

"I don't think that's a boat," I said. "I think that's a firetruck."

"I think that's a boat," she said.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's a firetruck because that is the fire station, which is where firetrucks stay when they're not being used. What you're seeing is the ladder of the truck all stretched out."

"Well, I'm pitty sure it's a boat."

"Should we go see? Let's go see."

We walked over to the edge of the parking lot and peered through the trees. 

"See," I said. "It's a firetruck."

"Oh! It is a firetruck!" she admitted.

"Come on down!" the firemen called (we were, relationally speaking "up" on a hill above the firemen). "We'll show you the truck!"

The hill was pretty steep, but we decided to slip and slide down it anyway (leaving our three big bags full of library books sitting unattended at the top of the hill). The firemen showed us the 100 foot ladder, how they were lubricating the hydraulic press that works the ladder. They made the ladder go all the way up and all the way down (to make sure every bit of it was lubricated). Then they showed us all the hoses on the truck (they keep several different hoses of different lengths). When the hoses are filled with water they get pretty heavy—a one foot section ends up weighing about one pound, so a 200 foot hose weighs about 200 lbs But they also have, like, 1000 foot hoses as well, so things can get pretty heavy!

Olivia's wedding (7/28)

 

Olivia got married on Sunday and it was truly a beautiful day!

Kelli assigned herself a few too many tasks to do and was a bit frazzled (to put it lightly). She decorated, she catered, she walked the bride down the aisle... And everything was wonderful—the food, the decorations—but it was a lot!

I was glad that I volunteered my mom, Josie, and myself to chop vegetables for her. We spent hours chopping onions and tomatoes and olives! But I wish we'd done more (because, Kelli did so much). 

We should have showed up early to help set things up, but then—I suppose—we wouldn't have had the energy to help out during the reception. I ended up in charge of the live stream recording of the ceremony (so family members too far away to attend could still attend), so I sat right behind my sister, which felt a little too VIP for my station. 

Another one bites the dust

Technically she bit the dust over the weekend. And we thought she was getting better. But in the last couple of days she spiked a new fever and has been terribly, terribly sleepy. We took her SpO2 levels this morning and they were low enough (and her cough awful enough) that we decided to take her in as well.

They heard some wheezing in her breathing so decided to give her some albuterol. But even that didn't clear up all the noises in her lungs, so they gave her an antibiotic prescription as well. They considered giving her an x-ray to confirm, but since both her brothers were easily diagnosed with pneumonia the doctor decided her borderline case was likely also pneumonia.

So very fun times over here! Hopefully we will all get over this thing soon!

Pneumonia boy, part 2: Benjamin bites the dust

While I hopped in the shower this morning, Andrew started calling the pediatrician the minute their office was open. We'd decided last night that Benjamin's cough was (a) wild and (b) lasting far too long. He'd fallen ill on Thursday (the day I left) and had been running a temperature between 100° and 105° the whole week long. 

Everyone else who has had this sickness got really sick but then started feeling better. 

I was just barely feeling nearly 100% when I headed out for SLC, so I was fairly confident I wasn't going to be spreading germs. I was just sad to hear that Benjamin wasn't feeling well—and missed the sleepover at Grandpa's house because he wasn't feeling well—and then Rachel started feeling sick the following day (though she hasn't been as sick as Benjamin). 

Anyway, I was only sick for about a week...but I was almost better by the end of that week. 

Benjamin has made no apparent movement towards getting better. His fever was lingering, his appetite was down, his cough was persistent... It was feeling very much like Alexander (and those symptoms felt similar to Andrew because he was also prone to pneumonia as a child).

Unfortunately, the same storm that brought down all the branches last night before I got home also knocked out the power at various places around town. We were fine over at our house, but our pediatrician's office was without power. When Andrew couldn't get through on the phone he went over in person to see if he could make an appointment, but they were running on generators over there and weren't going to make an extra appointments until the power came back on. 

So we took Benjamin to the urgent care. 

A Library Miracle

On the way up to the airport on Tuesday my mom and I stopped at the Orem Public Library to say goodbye to Josie (who works there). She took us through the new art gallery where I got to see an installation by my friend (?) acquaintance (?) tutor (?) colleague (?) AshMae (who taught the "Mine to Tell" course I took years ago, who I've visited with at BCC events, who I'm friends with on Facebook but don't truthfully know that well in real life). The theme of her exhibit was stay-at-home parenthood.  

It was fun to run into AshMae's work there.