Pelican's in Georgia

It has been years since we've been to Pelican's!

We went on a family adventure on Thursday (which I will write about eventually) and there was a Pelican's right across the street! Who knew? 

First trip to Pelican's, first pig tails, first bee sting

On Saturday morning the three oldest kids woke up around 7:00 and then, after quietly having breakfast together, played school in Rachel's room for three hours. Andrew and I were quite shocked when we woke up and looked at the clock. To reward the children for their kindness (a sleep-in like that is a rare gift, indeed), we decided to head to Pelican's for a snow cone. 

We hadn't been to Pelican's yet this summer, though I think we went when Andrew's parents were out visiting (in March). Or maybe Grandma only took the kids and I stayed home to sleep with Zoë (that sounds highly plausible). At any rate, with some of us not having been in about a year and a few of us not having been at least for a couple of months, we hadn't been to Pelican's in a long while so we decided to go. 

On a whim, I put Zoë's hair up in her first little pig tails:

Pelican's

This morning we danced around on our new deck and found a few butterflies were equally happy about the new addition to the yard. I helped Rachel catch one, which she kept for a few hours. When she went back outside to let it go it flew out of the cage and sat on the lid for a while. Rachel tried to get it to climb onto her finger but it flew away after tasting her finger with its legs (butterflies taste with their feet—ask Rachel, she'll tell you).

Rachel is TEN!

My friend Laura took all of my kids yesterday and kept them all afternoon. She picked them up around 11:15 and then Andrew went to get them after work. It was amazing! I got so much accomplished!

All three girls had pigtails in the morning (and I didn't do any of them)

Morehead Planetarium at UNC

The girls filled their "Obedience Bean Jars" last night, coinciding beautifully with Rachel's birthday, and were excited to claim their snow cone rewards at Pelican's this morning. Miriam was being such a slow poke about getting her morning jobs done (emptying half of the dishwasher; so taxing, right?) so Andrew threatened to leave without her if she didn't hurry up.

"Uh...I'm not old enough to stay home alone so you're not going to do that," she said, rolling her eyes.

He was kidding anyway, but it was rather humorous how quickly she stripped us of power. We eventually got her to finish her job and loaded all the kids in the van to head to Pelican's. At least, we let them believe that's where we were going the whole time we were driving.

Rachel had brought a book in the car and was completely oblivious to her surroundings. Miriam though kept piping up, asking if we were almost there. Rachel kept shushing her (she was trying to read!). When we pulled up in front of the Morehead Planetarium instead of Pelican's Snow Cones, the girls stumbled out of the car. They dazedly blinked in the sunshine and spun around a couple of times.

"Huh?" Rachel asked. "Where are we?"

"I thought we were going to Pelican's! I want a snow cone!" Miriam shrilly wailed.

"We're going on a surprise adventure first!" Andrew informed the girls. Their faces both lit up in wonder and then excitement as he explained where we were going.

As I've explained before, the girls both are rather fascinated by space...so we went ahead and bought the pass, which is technically just a donation to the planetarium that they thank you for by allowing you to attend shows for free. We're looking at it as an extra-curricular educational activity for all of us. Andrew's a push-over when it comes to spacey stuff.

A giant sundial

Strength of a small tornado

Showing much restraint we only spent two hours at the pool this morning. Rachel had her lessons with me while the Alder children had their lessons with Clarissa (and Daddy watched Miriam and Benjamin).

Rachel made fabulous progress—she can now float (though probably not to save her life since she still occasionally thinks she’s drowning in the shallow end). I think we’ll be making fairly steady progress through the summer; she’s so motivated that she even noted that we can continue our lessons in Florida since there’ll be a pool at the hotel.

Miriam has been making progress as well. She climbed into the deep-end and scuttled along the wall (with Andrew near by, of course) and walked tiptoe along the shallow-end wall and practiced blowing bubbles all on her own accord. I think that will count for her lesson today.

After lessons Lindsay and I let the kids play while we bounced the babies.

I’m looking forward to going back tomorrow; hopefully it will go just as well.

There’s something a little different about teaching your own children something that you used to teach billions of other children. It takes a different kind of patience and a different kind of energy from what I use ordinarily at home or what I used when I taught swimming lessons at the Orem Fitness Center. But it’s a fun challenge to find a good balance between Rachel’s personality and mine.

Andrew told her that she needs to treat me just as she treats Miss Reeves—and so far I think she’s succeeded in that. She would never dream of saying “no” or “I can’t” to Miss Reeves and would never ever throw a fit for her. I don’t usually get that same treatment but at swimming lessons Rachel has been a gem.

Perhaps our new obedience system has played a part. We have three jars sitting on a shelf in our home: one is Rachel’s, one is Miriam’s, and one is Mommy and Daddy’s.

We had a Family Night lesson about obedience, discussing Jonah and Nephi and a few other quintessential role models of obedience, but without ever telling the girls what the theme of the lesson was. At the end we asked what we were trying to teach by sharing all the scripture stories we’d shared.

“Obedience,” Rachel sighed gloomily.

Pave Paradise and Pelican's

After our grand adventure at Stagville yesterday we started on our list of errands. Our first stop was Lowe's to pick up a few things for some projects. On our way back to the van Andrew was pushing Miriam in the cart and I was carrying Benjamin and holding Rachel's hand.

"Run Daddy!" Miriam urged. "Go fast!"

Andrew did a few running steps and then jumped on the cart so that he could coast with Miriam to the van. This was a very bad idea (as he soon learned) because the cart completely upended. He quickly jumped off but the cart and tried to stop it but it flipped completely over and landed so it was resting on the handle bars. It had so much momentum that it continued to hurtle through the parking lot, dragging Miriam with it!

I stopped walking and stared with my mouth open.

I don't know how far she was dragged but after what seemed like an eternity the cart came to rest and we all caught up with it, and peeled the cart (Miriam and all) off the pavement.

She somehow managed to keep holding onto the handlebars and was able to keep her face off the ground (thank goodness!). Her knees took the brunt of it, but she's perfectly fine (though she was upset that her pants got muddy (and that her knees hurt)).

Andrew felt so bad and I'll admit that I was a little angry for a few minutes (until I remembered that one time when Rachel was little and I pitched her out of the stroller and into a busy street and then I was all full of forgiveness (even Steven, right?*)) but Andrew made it all better for everyone by suggesting that we stop for snow cones at Pelican's—the neighbourhood snow cone joint.

In Utah there are Snow Cone Shacks or Shave Ice** Stands on every corner, it seems. That's not the case out here. Pelican's is very popular and, it seems, rather unique. They offer over 100 flavours, which was terrible for our indecisive family. The girls ended up choosing flavours based on their favourite colours (so Rachel had green/blue and Miriam had pink).

Here they are waiting for their snow cones (you can see Miriam's none the worse for the wear (and her pants aren't even that dirty)):

Bikes and Snow Cones

One of our family goals this year was to "make the shed awesome." We did that on Saturday (and it was quite the project) and now we can walk into the shed and get our bikes out and everything (because before everything was just shoved on top of everything else in a big jumble). So today I pulled out my bike and the bike trailer (and pumped up all the tires) and we all rode to the park together. Rachel still doesn't have the pedals on her bike but she's learned how to balance on her bike quite well.

I was terribly sweaty by the time we got there. I kind of wished the pool was open, but because it's October now it wasn't. Just look at how sweaty Benjamin and Miriam are—and they weren't even pedaling!

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):

Right now I am tired

We've been bingeing on our museum pass lately and on Monday arranged to visit there once again. This time it was somewhat of a business matter. I was asked to be the co-room mother for Rachel's class because someone else backed out and so the trained room mother wanted to give me some information and so forth. We had planned to meet at the park after school but it was a bit soggy so we changed the location to the museum, where the kids could play inside.

I sent a note with Rachel in the morning to tell her teacher that she'd be a car rider but after waiting in line to pick her up I learned that she'd mistakenly been put on the bus anyway.

It was a moment of slight panic for me. I already hate driving, as you know, and now my plans were changed which meant that my pre-mapped route would change and it was momentarily rather stressful. In the end I just called Andrew, who thankfully was at home, and told him to pick Rachel up at the bus stop—we'd be continuing on without her.

Both Rachel and her friend were a little sad that they didn't get their playdate after school but they both handled it maturely. Her friend is having a birthday party on Friday, anyway, and Rachel's going to that (and has been looking forward to it for weeks). Her friend has a little sister who is just Miriam's age so the three of them played nicely together at the museum while I talked with the mom and Rachel sat at home and read.

We had a quick dinner when Miriam, Benjamin, and I got home and talked about the Plan of Salvation
and what it means for us in times of sorrow before heading off to Pelican's for dessert. Even though it's been less-than-hot and more-than-rainy lately (and perhaps because of that) Pelican's was giving away free kiddie cones. They have a freebie every Monday throughout the summer, though some freebies are better than others. Sometimes they'll just have an extra flavour for free (so you can choose three flavours instead of two) or they'll give you an add-on (like gummy worms...or...I don't know what else they have) but it seems like on miserable, drizzly Mondays they just start handing out free cones.

Uncle David's last day

We decided to spend Uncle David's last day at the Eno River. The kids love it and it's so beautiful and it doesn't even have to involve very much walking. Although we had planned to go on a little hike we didn't end up doing that and instead played in the water the whole time.

David asked if there were any fish in this river.

"Sure," I said. "And turtles and crawdads and snakes and all sorts of critters."

It's always fun when Grandpa comes

Zoë took about a week to warm up to Grandma. I left the kids with Grandma on Wednesday last week because I had dance practice, which means two solid hours of dancing. I've been getting away with holding Zoë on stage through most of these rehearsals but I simply can't dance for two hours while holding her. So even though she'd just met Grandma, I left her anyway, all alone (Andrew was out of town). 

She screamed and screamed and screamed. 

So I took her to rehearsal with me on Thursday. 

Slowly, though Zo came around to Grandma. She learned that Grandma's arms kept her out of Benjamin's reach. She learned that Grandma will give her Cheerios and Veggie Straws. She learned that Grandma is phenomenally great at the game peek-a-boo. And she decided that Grandma was pretty okay.

"She's just gotten used to me and now we're going to introduce her to another new person," Grandma said. 

And then we wondered how Zoë would react when she (re)met her grandpa. Would she be shy of him for the whole week? Or would his baby-whispering ways win her heart outright?

We found out today when Grandpa texted Grandma around 10:30 this morning. 

"Eduardo," he wrote.

"What?" Grandma asked.

"RDU," Grandpa wrote back.

Benjamin's Pool Party

Benjamin turned five at the beginning of June and with Andrew scrambling to finish his dissertation and the end of the school year and everything else, it was just kind of a crazy time for us to try to throw a party for him...so we didn't. We celebrated as a family at the pool but we didn't do anything with friends because I wanted to choose a date when Andrew would be around to help. 

Time kept slipping by and all of a sudden we we're moving in six days and Rachel's birthday is tomorrow...so we picked today!

The girls pointed out that this would be when his birthday party would have been held had he had the decency to wait until his due date. Rachel very graciously and maturely has been allowing him to be the center of attention today (even though it's her birthday-eve), though she did breathe a sigh of relief when I came out of my bedroom with a pile of freshly wrapped birthday presents labeled "To Rachel."

We, uh, didn't get anything for Benjamin this time around because we gave him presents on his actual birthday. This was hard for him to process. He though we should do the whole thing over again from start to finish. He wanted birthday cereal and presents and a cake. 

"No, no," I said. "We did cake and presents and cereal on your birthday, remember?"

"That was when I turned five," he pointed out. 

"Right," I said. "And this is your five-year-old party. But it's just a party, not your birthday..."

"But how come Rachel gets to choose birthday cereal?"

"Because it really is Rachel's birthday."

"But she doesn't get a party?"

"Right."

She's not even getting cake tomorrow. (I told you she was being gracious and mature!) 

Crazy Day and Quiet Day

Yesterday was a pretty rough day around here. Poor Grandma has had a sore back (it was sore even before she came out to help us) and it just kept getting more and more painful for her to do anything. By yesterday afternoon she couldn't do anything, practically, and the pain started localizing around her kidneys.

Grandma is very familiar with kidney pains.

Eventually she decided she needed to go into the ER for a scan, so we loaded up the kids into the van and headed off to the ER. The kids are always excited to drive past the hospital where Zoë was born and what's even more exciting is it's on the way to Pelican's! Benjamin was sure that that's where we were headed (because Grandma was just fine—obviously).

He kept saying, "Grandma, us can go to Peck-ee-uns! And us can get snow cones and count cars. I will count the red cars and you can count the blue ones!"

It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about...but when I finally did it made me smile. We'd watched the movie Up on the way home from the beach last week. He was quoting Russell:

And afterwards we'd go get ice cream at Fentons. I always get chocolate and he gets butter-brickle. Then we'd sit on this one curb, right outside, and I'll count all the blue cars and he counts all the red ones, and whoever gets the most, wins. I like that curb.

He's very much into mimicking story lines lately, pretending that he's actually living them. Today he found a wand during scripture study and put a spell on himself to make himself "big, big, bigger than the whole house so that [he] doesn't even fit!"

The kids watched Alice in Wonderland this afternoon.

Anyway, we dropped Grandma off at the ER (not as callous as it sounds—even Grandpa's done it before) and headed home for my first afternoon flying solo with all four kids (since Grandma came (I did that one week without having either Uncle David or Andrew home and it was rough)).

Grandpa called to see how things were going and I said, "It hasn't been too bad. It's only been a couple of hours, but it hasn't been too bad."

He was looking at plane tickets to come out and rescue us all because Grandma's kidney stones never pass on their own. She always has to get them "blasted" and then there's recovery time and so forth.

"You'll be stuck with four kids, no husband, and an incapacitated mother-in-law," Grandpa said. "So I've been looking at plane tickets. I can work from wherever, so I'll just fly out there...and break my leg so you'll have to take care of me, too!"

Fortunately, that didn't have to happen. It's "just" a kidney infection not a kidney stone, so they sent her home with antibiotics and pain medicine, and Grandma's feeling better (though not great) today.

We spent the afternoon quietly admiring Zoë on her new play mat (yes, Andrew, I picked up more baby hud (but I couldn't resist when someone was giving this away...because I gave Benjamin's little play gym away to Kim Welling when he was finished with it so obviously we needed a new one)).

Apparently the pattern is called "vintage boy." I'm assuming this is because it's not plastered with pink and purple? My little girl looked just fine on it...though admittedly she is wearing a hand-me-down shirt of Benjamin's, so...

Grandma's here!

Miriam wrote this story about clocks at school on Tuesday and was so proud when her teacher read it aloud during math time (I guess they're learning about time right now):

Clocks help us tell time. Time is when something is going to happen. Like today my grandma is coming. In the morning it was only 8 hours until 4:30. That is when...

Phoebe's a reader! She reads things!

Here's Phoebe and the kitty enjoying the sunny window together: 

Spring Fling

Last night I went to bed and...didn't wake up again until 6:00 in the morning. And then I went back to bed until around 8:30. And then the kids let me take a nap in the afternoon. And it was glorious because the night before last I kept being woken up by contractions every 20 to 30 minutes—not enough to make me think I was in labour but just enough to make it impossible to really fall asleep (and nothing would stop them; it was infuriating). I was exhausted all day yesterday and when I tried to take a nap it was a big fail (the kids wouldn't even sit quietly to watch a show). But today I felt like a new person. It was great!

Fortunately, Miriam had a field trip to the farm yesterday and they were rather late getting back so I only had Benjamin home, which meant he had no one to fight with. We made banana muffins together with the cool morning air blowing through the windows. When we were finished baking the house was only 74°F! Our A/C is set to 78°F so this was kind of a huge deal—baking...in May...without the air conditioner working its hardest? Amazing. We've been having gloriously cool mornings and evenings.

Miriam with strawberries she picked at the farm

Friday in Hillsborough

Grandpa is someone who always likes to have a plan—in fact, he was asking about "the plan" before they'd even left the airport parking lot—so while much of this first week with Grandma was spent working around the house, going to the park on a whim, or just sitting around playing and reading, this weekend was full of Plans.

Friday's Plan was to explore Historic Hillsborough. Our first stop was at the visitor's center to get some information. The kids enjoyed exploring a few of the trees that are finally in bloom. Spring is out in full force now, everything is covered with a fine dusting of pollen and, although my family is suffering with allergies, it's beautiful!

Rachel's baptism (July 21)

Rachel's baptism was a wonderful day! I'm so glad Grandma and Grandpa were here to help make it as wonderful as it was. When I told Grandma that I didn't know how I could have done it without her, she smiled and said, "You would have managed. Your friends would have stepped up to help." And that's true because we have great friends here. Still, it was nice to have Grandma helping. She adds a special touch to everything she does.

She made a beautiful remembrance book cake to help celebrate:

Let's start at the very beginning

My birthday this year was a million times better than last year! Let's list the reasons why, shall we?

Last year: NICU

This year: Florida

Yup. That just about sums it up.

We had a relatively tame day, just relaxing by the pool while Grandma and Grandpa went to the temple for a wedding. The pool is pretty awesome, though the bottom of it is made of a gigantic emory board or something. The upside is that my feet have been stripped of dead skin and are silky smooth. The downside is that all of my skin junk (and everybody else's) is just floating around in the water. Yum, yum.

But the water was warm and wonderful so I put my thoughts of swimming through people's foot gunk aside and enjoyed the pool. It's mostly about 3 feet deep, with a zero-entry side (Miriam's favourite), a water slide (Rachel's favourite), a splash pad (Benjamin's favourite), and a "deep" end (4 ft. 10 inches) where the grown ups didn't have to be all hunched over to be completely in the water (our favourite).

We spent all morning at the pool.

Cue pictures...

Here's Benjamin at the splash pad: