In other news...

I think my sarcasm radar is broken.

Our dentist again referred Miriam to the orthodontist. While she has no canine teeth on the top (at all) but plenty of space for them, her canine teeth on the bottom are coming in but have no where to go (at all).

"I would get her in quickly," the dentist said. "But just know that she's probably going to need braces twice."

I'm sure I looked with him with a bit of a panicked expression.

"It'll be fine," he said. "Just cancel your next Hawaii vacation and fix her mouth. It will be worth it, I promise."

And I stood there gasping for air a bit, completely unsure of what to say. Was he serious? We're a year out of graduate school. A fancy (or otherwise) Hawaiian vacation isn't even remotely on our radar. Should I plan one that we can cancel? Would that magically help us drum up enough money to pay for braces for her twice?

I'm sure he was kidding about the Hawaii jab. Right?

So, good news...

Unbeknownst to us, the department chair at the Romney Institute has continued to push for the creation (or rather the continuation) of a visiting assistant professorship for Andrew or the coming school year. The first inkling he got was when he was asking about how and when the termination of our benefits will happen. We know our benefits end before September and I'm, uh, taking the kids to the dentist tomorrow because there's nothing quite like the midnight hour.

Anyway, he was told to call his department chair from Boston (he's at APSA right now, on his last "supported" conference, which he had to get special permission to attend because the conference breaches August and runs into September so the travel department was originally like, "You'll have to pay for your return flight..." but in the end they allowed him to use the very last of his research funds on a roundtrip ticket to Boston because it's kind of weird to pay for half a round trip ticket (and since it was purchased before the end of August it was kind of a grey area anyway))* before he did anything like purchase an insurance plan for our family from the ACA marketplace.

Instead she called him this evening to tell him to forego looking at new health insurance plans at all because *drum roll* he'd simply be continuing on as a visiting assistant professor.

We are shocked, relieved, and so, so happy.

Elated even.

We're elated.

Monday and the weekend

Our first Monday of the school year went fairly smoothly.

Miriam purposely walked past the lost and found table on Friday afternoon and spotted Benjamin's lunchbox. They went to retrieve it together after school so when I showed up at the school to look for it I was instead greeted by a couple of triumphant children.

Benjamin remembered to bring his lunchbox home today.

He was also the "table leader" today, he informed me.

"Ooh! What's the table leader?" I probed.

"Well, it's kind of like a war leader," he explained, "Just for a smaller group."

"A war leader, eh?"

"Yeah!" he said. "Like General Washington but for my table."

Sure, uh-huh, yup. That is exactly what your teacher was going for with that one, I'm sure.

To be fair, this very solemn explanation he gave me means that he likely took his role very seriously.

******

Fruita and petroglyphs and stuff

After visiting the alpaca ranch on Friday (August 10) we gave the children a tour of the "small stuff" around Capitol Reef National Park. None of us really felt like doing much hiking at that point in our trip anyway.

First we stopped by Panoramic Point for a picture:

You win some, you lose some

We've given the children several lectures about how Alexander learns things by watching us so we need to be setting a good example. Specifically, I've been nagging the squirmiest of my children about their behaviour during prayers because, in my opinion, Alexander should know how to get ready prayer at his age (the ripe old age of ten months old, you know) but so far he hasn't even tried because, well, he's probably a little confused about what we do during the prayer.

Do we fold our arms, bow our heads, and close our eyes while prayers are said? Or do we crawl around in circles, pick up toys and/or books to play with and/or read, and fidget, fidget, fidget?

Sometimes it's rather difficult to tell at our house, because even during our mealtime prayers, which typically last about thirty seconds, prayer time is chaos. Seriously, thirty seconds and there'll be silverware dancing in the air, plates flipping off the table, fingerfuls of food being sampled, children falling off their seats. All they'd need to do is start singing and it would be a scene to rival the kitchen scene in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Our constant reminders about setting a good example during prayer time finally seem to have taken hold, however, and the wriggliest of our bunch have begun making an effort to maintain a reverent mien during prayer time. And, this morning, finally, my sweet little baby looked around at his siblings all kneeling down with their arms folded and their heads bowed and did his best to mimic them, clasping his pudgy little arms against his chest.

Of course, Zoë was still in bed and Benjamin, who had been in the middle of breakfast when he was called for family prayer, sat at the bottom of the stairs rather than joining the rest of us upstairs, so Ander only had Rachel, Miriam, and Daddy to look at for an example (he was sitting on my lap so I'm exempt).

At any rate, it was incredibly adorable and we're definitely calling it a win!

St. George (August 17–18)

Miriam, Alexander, and I went on a last-minute getaway with my mom and sister the weekend before school started. Austin's family was hosting an open house for him and Rosie and we decided we should go to represent the family. It's a good thing we did because I think Rosie was feeling a little outnumbered by Barkers and needed some familiar faces around her. Not that there's anything wrong with Austin's side of the family (in fact, his family is pretty amazing), just that going from single to married is a difficult transition. It takes time for someone else's family to grow on you. 

Anyway, we left on Friday afternoon and drove straight to St. George where we made a quick stop to visit my friend Shallee. Her kids started school last week and she wrote on Facebook about how her cute little Amaya came home from school so excited to have made a new friend. They were both wearing the very same pair of shoes and bonded instantly. 

I commented that that was fairly funny because years ago there was a girl in my US history class who was wearing the exact same shoes as me and we also bonded instantly—and it was Amaya's mom, my friend Shallee! 

Somehow the story is cuter when you're in grade one than when you're in grade ten/eleven, but don't knock the power of a cute pair of runners!

Here are some of our kids (and Josie and a dog) playing on the floor together:

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell

The first day of school is here at last (and all too soon). The kids all got up and ready to go like professional students this morning. They were all quite excited (and a little bit nervous). We took pictures before they left for school and the girls were a little thrown off when Benjamin squeezed his way between them, rather than standing to the other side of Miriam. Those two have been standing next to each other for first-day-of-school pictures for several years...and now Benjamin has finally joined them.

It's an Alpaca Alpaca day!

On Friday morning (the 10th) we took the children to visit Circle Cliff Ranch, an alpaca ranch just outside of Bicknell. It's run by Diena, a retired elementary school principal, who (along with her husband) sold her home three years ago to live her dream of raising alpacas, spinning yarn from their fleece, and selling her handiwork.

Though retired, Diena is still passionate about education and opens her ranch up to visitors. Zoë, our resident llama lover, was particularly excited about our alpaca day. Alpacas aren't llamas, which we knew, but they are both closely related members of the camelid family and they look like alpacas so Zoë was thrilled (though intimidated) by all the alpacas.

Zoë, excited but scared

And so, for her, I decided to write this post about alpacas following the scheme of Llama Llama, as a tribute to one of Zoë's favourite authors, Anna Dewdney (keep in mind that I am not Ann Dewdney, however, so my poem isn't quite as cutesy as one of her would have been):

Alexander at 10 months

Alexander is ten months old today and he has a little something to tell you:

Making it to actual heaven

Ever since learning about the Plan of Salvation, Benjamin has been obsessed with making it to "actual heaven" (or the Celestial Kingdom) and avoiding being cast into "pit darkness" (or Outer Darkness).

Tonight at dinner Andrew asked Benjamin to give the blessing on the food and Zoë, who is a bit of a prayer-hog, started pouting.

"I never get to say the prayer!" she shouted.

"You always say the prayer," Benjamin said.

"You just want to keep all the blessings for yourself, don't you?" I asked Zoë, jokingly.

"Yes," she nodded gravely.

"Really?!" Benjamin gasped. "Do you want to keep us all out of actual heaven!?"

"Yes," she answered matter-of-factly. "I do."

"Alright, alright," Andrew said in his best moderator's voice. "How about Benjamin says the prayer now and Zoë can say family prayer tonight?"

"Yippee!" Zoë shrieked happily.

So Benjamin began our dinner prayer.

"Dear Heavenly Father," he said. "We are thankful for the food and please bless it." Then he added vindictively, "And please help us to keep Zoë from taking all the prayers so that the rest of us can make it into actual heaven, too."

Stifled laughter echoed around the table, but we all managed to remain mostly reverent for the duration of the prayer. That silly, silly boy!