Boy, this can wear a girl out!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Mama Claire
Since Rachel was born, Claire has been fascinated with the whole breastfeeding thing. She forgot for awhile, but Maggie coming along renewed her interest. I looked outside one day to see Claire sitting on the swing with her shirt up on one side "feeding" her baby. What a good mama!
Boy, this can wear a girl out!
Boy, this can wear a girl out!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Just a Snippet
I won't subject anyone to the full 3 minute version of one of her dances, but here is a little snippet of the ballet performance. I of course think she did a great job and was adorable!
It's Recital Night!
Claire took dance at Miss Sandra's School of Dance this year and loved it! They practiced ballet, tap and some fun tumbling things. The year ended with a dance recital. Claire was a skunk and did both ballet and tap. It was a hoot to watch her dance and we were so proud of her, but in the words of Paul, "It was our first recital and Claire's class did a fine job, but the 10 minutes of fun required enduring 90 minutes of torture." Paul just got a little taste of the fun to come with three little girls. He also was a little freaked out by the makeup, which compared to the other girls, Claire's was quite subtle.
Rachel borrowed a costume so that she could dress up too and hand out programs at the recital.
Got to get in some practice moves before the recital.
We had attended Katey's recital the week before, and she came to cheer Claire on.
The whole gang came to watch - Bridget, Katey, Claire, Bob, Rachel, Maggie and Paul.
We are so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors who love us!
Rachel borrowed a costume so that she could dress up too and hand out programs at the recital.
Got to get in some practice moves before the recital.
We had attended Katey's recital the week before, and she came to cheer Claire on.
The whole gang came to watch - Bridget, Katey, Claire, Bob, Rachel, Maggie and Paul.
We are so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors who love us!
We're Back!!
Well, we're back from vacation, our computer is back working and we're almost back to a normal routine (if you can call it that) and just in time to get ready to go out of town again. I'm going to try and post some new pics so you all can see that Maggie actually exists and is growing daily and we also still have two crazy girls that bring me new excitement every day!
Here she is, my sweet girl, Maggie Grace, in one of my favorite positions - asleep! Now if I could just sleep like that.
Here she is, my sweet girl, Maggie Grace, in one of my favorite positions - asleep! Now if I could just sleep like that.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Happenings April - May 17, 2009
May 17, 2009
Dear family,
This letter will comprise about 2 months as we have been remiss in sending out letters. We have a slight excuse the past 2 weeks though; our main computer decided to stop working one day. It would turn on, but wouldn't boot up and the screen would remain black. I tried all the recommended troubleshooting, but nothing worked so we are using our old laptop while we see if we can get that one fixed by a guy who maintains all the computers for our college. The laptop works okay, but is kind of slow and we have to work harder to do e-mail because all of our address books and everything are set up in the other one.
The weird thing is that the guy opened up the computer and called me to ask if I had taken out the RAM for the computer. I hadn't, and he said that there was no RAM in the slots where they go, and it wouldn't start without RAM. So he wondered if someone stole it from our computer. That is, according to J.J., the creepy theory as we can't imagine anyone stealing something from our computer that costs $16 when they could take the whole thing. The other theory of mine is that it has some built in RAM and the slots are for additional RAM, and that there is something wrong with that. We'll see.
Finals week was pretty busy for me as I spent time grading papers and going to a few meetings and sending in a proposal for a conference next year. Our babysitters were able to work on both Monday and Wednesday, so I was able to take advantage of the full week. I had the grades finished by Friday, and I put them on the online space for each class knowing that I might get a few questions before I had to turn them in on Monday. I did, and had to deal with a few students over the weekend via e-mail, but everything was resolved and the students were mollified if not fully satisfied.
Saturday I attended graduation, which was kind of fun. It was fun to hang out with the faculty, line up and walk in after all the graduates had walked in everyone was watching. We sat on the first few rows. The rest of the ceremony was kind of boring, as they went through all 1000 graduates. I was sitting close to where they were lined up to go on stage, so I was able to say hi to the dozen or so graduates I knew. Luckily, I was sitting next to a colleague and we had a nice time visiting.
After it was over I came home and Doug and Heidi were here to help spread the mulch around Bob's yard and our yard. Bob had asked me if I knew anyone who would do the work, and I told him I would if I could use any extra. He thought that was a good deal, so I enlisted Doug and Heidi to help and we did his flower beds and our flower beds in about 2 hours. The ground was still quite wet from all the rain, and the mulch was heavy from sitting in pile outside, but we got it done.
On Monday the 11th, our babysitters had left for the summer, so it was me at home. I had to get all the girls up and out of the house by 9:30 so that I could turn in grades by 10:00. In future semesters, we will start entering grades online, which will be nice. After I turned in the grades, I took the girls to the playground, and that was nice for them. We also went for a walk around the park. Maggie was well behaved and I fed her while we were on the walk. That evening we met J.J. at Murray State for a women's club potluck dinner, and we enjoyed visiting with friends there.
Tuesday I worked at the office all day, putting together a student guidebook for our freshman composition course. This project has been about 3 months in the making, mostly pulling stuff from our publisher's sources and then adding some of our own relevant material. I wrote the introduction and a couple of other parts, and then spent this week putting it all together and making sure it all made sense. That took me all of Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, but I sent it off Friday to the publisher and now am free to do other things until they send back the proof. It should be fine once it is finished, but it feels kind of rushed and cobbled right now. The second edition next year will likely be better. But anyway, that was my work week.
During the week I was also finally able to mow our lawn, and I had to do it twice because the first cut was on a high setting because the grass was so long. I also planted tomatoes, peas, beans, watermelon, squash, and cucumbers in our garden and built the rabbit fence around it. So it was a busy week for us. The weather did cooperate so that the girls could play outside most of the time.
Friday evening we went out to dinner with our friends Trevor and Shara who are moving to Wisconsin in 2 weeks. We went to the Japanese hibachi restaurant and enjoyed sushi and hibachi grilled food. On Saturday J.J. gave me a haircut, insisting that I cut it short because she was afraid my lengthy locks -- not really long but much longer than in the past -- was harboring ticks. And since it was the summer, I was fine with it.
Well, that's about it for the past two weeks. We are headed to Fairport on Wednesday for a week, and then going to Nashville for a wedding and we'll pick up Gordon for a stay with us then. So the next few weeks will be a nice break before I start teaching on June 8.
We love you!
May 3, 2009
Dear family,
We've missed a few weeks, mainly because it was a
busy month. This last week was the last week of
classes at Murray State, and a busy week for me even
though I haven't collected any final papers yet.
Because of the change to the freshman English course,
I have a lot of things to do before the semester
ends, so that, along with several other projects or
things to do, have kept me from seeing any light at
the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
By the end of the week, I had collected some of the
final papers, enough to keep me busy grading them
after the weekend, and also nearly finished some of
those things that needed to be done. I still have one
free week in May to do some necessary work, and
hopefully nothing comes up to take that away.
J.J. had a few things going on this week as well -- a
book club on Tuesday evening and then she helped a
sister in the ward clean the apartment she moved out
of on Thursday. I helped move all of her things on
Wednesday evening and then played basketball at the
church. Some of the guys who play basketball each
week are nonmembers from Belize -- friends of the 1st
counselor in the bishopric who is also from Belize.
They helped with the move, so when they asked if I
was going to play, I did somewhat to show
appreciation for helping. J.J. was nice enough to let
me go even though she had to put all the kids to bed.
The weather has made the kids kind of stir-crazy. It
has rained all week long, and it is not stopping. I
think we have received about 4 inches over the week,
and if it is not raining, it is threatening. Because
of so much rain, I haven't been able to plant our
garden, nor have I been able to mow our lawn, which
is looking pretty long now. Coming from the West, we
are not inclined to say "rain, rain, go away" but it
sure makes sense this week.
Friday evening we went out to eat at the pizza place
that has an indoor play area, and that was nice for
the girls to get some energy out. On Saturday, I was
planning on putting some mulch down on our neighbor's
flowerbeds because I offered to do it when he said he
was looking for someone to pay. I told him I would do
it if he let me use any extra on our flowerbeds. So
he got a pile of mulch, but it was too rainy on
Saturday and it will have to wait until next weekend.
I did some weeding outside anyway, and then in the
early afternoon we all drove to Paducah for the Stake
Welfare Leadership Training. Another sister offered
to watch our kids so that both J.J. and I could
attend. It was a pretty good meeting, and then we
went home, not going to the adult meeting because we
didn't have any babysitting. Claire had actually
stayed at Katey's house while we went. We knew this
would be how it would work so we had invited some
friends over for dinner that evening as well. They
both used to work at J.J.'s office and they have a
son Claire's age. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs
but had to eat inside because it was raining.
The kids had a fun time playing together, but we were
all up a little later than usual. Sunday morning was
Stake Conference, but instead of going back to
Paducah, the meeting was via satellite because it was
a regional stake conference. It started at 9:00 for
us because the region is mostly in the Eastern time
zone. But we kind of missed out on the meeting
because our satellite sound was out, so we had to
patch into a phone line and we could barely hear
anything. If our kids made one sound nobody around us
could hear. So we went out to the foyer with the kids
and could hear a little better over the speaker, and
people spread out through the building to listen in
various rooms because all of them were better than
the chapel. From what I heard, it sounded like a good
meeting, with Pres. Monson, Elder Perry and Elder Jay
Jensen. The problem with the satellite sound comes
from a recent change in our building management
company. It seems that we now have the strict
authoritarian group that won't allow anything in the
building that is not on the "checklist." We had some
nice cabinets in the clerk's office that weren't on
the checklist so they were taken out and everything
in them was left on the floor; an incriminating
bulletin board in the bishop's office was removed,
and we just found out today that the VCR that was
connected with the satellite system was apparently
not on the checklist either so this group took that
away without telling anyone. So, not only could we
not hear the conference because it wasn't connected
correctly or the VCR made it work somehow, but we
couldn't record the broadcast so that we could watch
it later and actually hear it.
The advantage of today's schedule was getting home at
11:30 instead of 1:30. But with the rain, it makes
for grumpy kids, so it's kind of a wash. Well, that
was our week. Finals week is this next week, and for
me that means grading papers and feeling bad about
the students who showed so much promise but somehow
faltered during the semester.
An interesting thing happened in the past few weeks
-- I had made a Facebook page a while back to see if
it might be useful for one of my classes, but I
determined it wasn't. But I still had the Facebook
page, and started to hear from old friends. Each
week, people from BYU and from Monticello are "adding
me as a friend." It is interesting to see what people
are up to. One of my good friends at BYU tracked me
down through Facebook and then called me after we
exchanged messages. I really like that I can now
easily contact those good friends, though I am sort
of puzzled what to do about people from high school
that I wouldn't even know what to say anything to. So
it is interesting.
That's our week -- we love you!
April 2009
Dear family,
Since we haven't written for the month of April, here
are some highlights:
Of course, April is the month of J.J.'s and my
birthdays, so there is always something going on
there. This year, however, both days were very busy
days for me. I had a meeting until 7:00 on my
birthday so when I came home there was time for cake
and getting the kids to bed. J.J. and I ended up
going out for dinner on another night. For her
birthday, I had a Faculty Recognition banquet that I
went to because I was recognized at it for receiving
a faculty fellowship grant for the summer -- to work
on the student handbook for the new composition
course. At the university, that was also Earth Week,
and one event was an outdoor showing of the movie
"Ferngully." So conveniently after the banquet I
walked outside the building I was in and met the
family on the grass where we watched the movie. The
weather was perfect and it was fun to watch the movie
outside.
Mom and Dad arrived here the second week of April,
and we had a good time while they were here. We went
to Mammoth Cave on Friday the 10th and then visited
the Adventure Science museum in Nashville before
spending the night there in order to attend the first
temple session for a sister in our ward who was
baptized last year. Mom and Dad graciously watched
our kids and our bishop's kids while we all went to
the session, and it was nice to see Loueva go
through. We ate lunch with some of the people there
after the session, and then drove home.
I talked Dad into singing in the Easter program at
church, and that went pretty well. After church
Trevor and Shara came over for Easter dinner and then
we had YSA home evening later on. Mom and Dad helped
a lot by watching the girls on Monday and Wednesday
while both of us were at work, and Mom also did a lot
of work outside on our weeding. She got everything
started and we have worked on things since to get
everything looking pretty nice.
On Thursday, J.J. left early in the morning with
Maggie for Klamath Falls for a few days, and then Mom
and Dad left to continue their trip to Palmyra, NY.
After they left, I took Claire and Rachel over to a
sister in the ward's house while I taught my classes,
and then I picked them up later. On Friday I took
them to Claire's art class, then one of our
babysitter's came over and I went to work for a few
hours, then I came home and took them to Claire's
dance class. That evening was Katey's birthday party,
so Claire went over there and it was also a sleepover
and a trip to Illinois the next day, so it was just
Rachel and me at home. Claire was able to go on a
pony ride while she was in Illinois and had a great
time. Rachel and I, on Saturday, went out to Land
Between the Lakes on a hike. I was scouting out an
area to take my Environmental Literature class on a
hike, so we took a trail that I thought was 2 miles.
It turned out to be 5 miles, but it was a nice hike,
and Rachel walked a lot of it. I had to carry her on
my shoulders otherwise, but she did great. We drove
around to check out a few little roads as well and
got home in time for her to take a nap. When I gave
her a bath later, she had a deer tick on her chest,
and I couldn't get it out by myself. Luckily, just
about that time Claire came home and I had her ask
Bridget for help and she pulled it out while I held
Rachel.
The next day I had a field trip planned. We had tried
to find a Saturday, but too many things were going on
so we finally settled on a Sunday. But it poured
rain; I mean poured rain that morning. So when Meghan
and Rob came to take Claire and Rachel to church and
drop me off where the MSU minibuses are, it was
really coming down. I took the minibus to the meeting
place and only had 6 out of the 12 I was expecting
show up. So we drove through the rain to LBL, started
on a short hike, and it stopped raining shortly
thereafter and didn't rain again. We went on a longer
2-mile hike, and there was a lot of walking through
water, but it was fun. The students enjoyed being out
there and we had some good discussions about things.
I got home from our field trip around 4:30, and Doug
and Heidi were watching the girls because Meghan and
Rob had to do something after 3. I still had YSA home
evening later and the day worked out pretty well.
That was the beginning of Earth Week, and so I was
involved as I could be in events happening that week,
especially since several of my students were
organizing things. So in addition to the movie on
Thursday night, I went to a couple of forums and
bought the $1 lunch for fundraiser for the student
environmental society. I actually bought lunches for
Dough and Heidi since they walked by while I was
there. Real generous, I know.
So, while the last week of the month was very rainy,
the middle of the month was about the best weather
possible -- 70s, sometimes a breeze, sometimes not,
so it was really nice for most of the month. I was
able to get our garden tilled before the rain, and
with the soft ground we did a lot of weeding and
planting of flowers.
Well, that's about all I can remember. Maggie is
growing and doing well. Rachel got a little sick for
a week, but got over that and Claire has been busy
growing up to be a "schoolgirl." We love you all!
Dear family,
This letter will comprise about 2 months as we have been remiss in sending out letters. We have a slight excuse the past 2 weeks though; our main computer decided to stop working one day. It would turn on, but wouldn't boot up and the screen would remain black. I tried all the recommended troubleshooting, but nothing worked so we are using our old laptop while we see if we can get that one fixed by a guy who maintains all the computers for our college. The laptop works okay, but is kind of slow and we have to work harder to do e-mail because all of our address books and everything are set up in the other one.
The weird thing is that the guy opened up the computer and called me to ask if I had taken out the RAM for the computer. I hadn't, and he said that there was no RAM in the slots where they go, and it wouldn't start without RAM. So he wondered if someone stole it from our computer. That is, according to J.J., the creepy theory as we can't imagine anyone stealing something from our computer that costs $16 when they could take the whole thing. The other theory of mine is that it has some built in RAM and the slots are for additional RAM, and that there is something wrong with that. We'll see.
Finals week was pretty busy for me as I spent time grading papers and going to a few meetings and sending in a proposal for a conference next year. Our babysitters were able to work on both Monday and Wednesday, so I was able to take advantage of the full week. I had the grades finished by Friday, and I put them on the online space for each class knowing that I might get a few questions before I had to turn them in on Monday. I did, and had to deal with a few students over the weekend via e-mail, but everything was resolved and the students were mollified if not fully satisfied.
Saturday I attended graduation, which was kind of fun. It was fun to hang out with the faculty, line up and walk in after all the graduates had walked in everyone was watching. We sat on the first few rows. The rest of the ceremony was kind of boring, as they went through all 1000 graduates. I was sitting close to where they were lined up to go on stage, so I was able to say hi to the dozen or so graduates I knew. Luckily, I was sitting next to a colleague and we had a nice time visiting.
After it was over I came home and Doug and Heidi were here to help spread the mulch around Bob's yard and our yard. Bob had asked me if I knew anyone who would do the work, and I told him I would if I could use any extra. He thought that was a good deal, so I enlisted Doug and Heidi to help and we did his flower beds and our flower beds in about 2 hours. The ground was still quite wet from all the rain, and the mulch was heavy from sitting in pile outside, but we got it done.
On Monday the 11th, our babysitters had left for the summer, so it was me at home. I had to get all the girls up and out of the house by 9:30 so that I could turn in grades by 10:00. In future semesters, we will start entering grades online, which will be nice. After I turned in the grades, I took the girls to the playground, and that was nice for them. We also went for a walk around the park. Maggie was well behaved and I fed her while we were on the walk. That evening we met J.J. at Murray State for a women's club potluck dinner, and we enjoyed visiting with friends there.
Tuesday I worked at the office all day, putting together a student guidebook for our freshman composition course. This project has been about 3 months in the making, mostly pulling stuff from our publisher's sources and then adding some of our own relevant material. I wrote the introduction and a couple of other parts, and then spent this week putting it all together and making sure it all made sense. That took me all of Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, but I sent it off Friday to the publisher and now am free to do other things until they send back the proof. It should be fine once it is finished, but it feels kind of rushed and cobbled right now. The second edition next year will likely be better. But anyway, that was my work week.
During the week I was also finally able to mow our lawn, and I had to do it twice because the first cut was on a high setting because the grass was so long. I also planted tomatoes, peas, beans, watermelon, squash, and cucumbers in our garden and built the rabbit fence around it. So it was a busy week for us. The weather did cooperate so that the girls could play outside most of the time.
Friday evening we went out to dinner with our friends Trevor and Shara who are moving to Wisconsin in 2 weeks. We went to the Japanese hibachi restaurant and enjoyed sushi and hibachi grilled food. On Saturday J.J. gave me a haircut, insisting that I cut it short because she was afraid my lengthy locks -- not really long but much longer than in the past -- was harboring ticks. And since it was the summer, I was fine with it.
Well, that's about it for the past two weeks. We are headed to Fairport on Wednesday for a week, and then going to Nashville for a wedding and we'll pick up Gordon for a stay with us then. So the next few weeks will be a nice break before I start teaching on June 8.
We love you!
May 3, 2009
Dear family,
We've missed a few weeks, mainly because it was a
busy month. This last week was the last week of
classes at Murray State, and a busy week for me even
though I haven't collected any final papers yet.
Because of the change to the freshman English course,
I have a lot of things to do before the semester
ends, so that, along with several other projects or
things to do, have kept me from seeing any light at
the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
By the end of the week, I had collected some of the
final papers, enough to keep me busy grading them
after the weekend, and also nearly finished some of
those things that needed to be done. I still have one
free week in May to do some necessary work, and
hopefully nothing comes up to take that away.
J.J. had a few things going on this week as well -- a
book club on Tuesday evening and then she helped a
sister in the ward clean the apartment she moved out
of on Thursday. I helped move all of her things on
Wednesday evening and then played basketball at the
church. Some of the guys who play basketball each
week are nonmembers from Belize -- friends of the 1st
counselor in the bishopric who is also from Belize.
They helped with the move, so when they asked if I
was going to play, I did somewhat to show
appreciation for helping. J.J. was nice enough to let
me go even though she had to put all the kids to bed.
The weather has made the kids kind of stir-crazy. It
has rained all week long, and it is not stopping. I
think we have received about 4 inches over the week,
and if it is not raining, it is threatening. Because
of so much rain, I haven't been able to plant our
garden, nor have I been able to mow our lawn, which
is looking pretty long now. Coming from the West, we
are not inclined to say "rain, rain, go away" but it
sure makes sense this week.
Friday evening we went out to eat at the pizza place
that has an indoor play area, and that was nice for
the girls to get some energy out. On Saturday, I was
planning on putting some mulch down on our neighbor's
flowerbeds because I offered to do it when he said he
was looking for someone to pay. I told him I would do
it if he let me use any extra on our flowerbeds. So
he got a pile of mulch, but it was too rainy on
Saturday and it will have to wait until next weekend.
I did some weeding outside anyway, and then in the
early afternoon we all drove to Paducah for the Stake
Welfare Leadership Training. Another sister offered
to watch our kids so that both J.J. and I could
attend. It was a pretty good meeting, and then we
went home, not going to the adult meeting because we
didn't have any babysitting. Claire had actually
stayed at Katey's house while we went. We knew this
would be how it would work so we had invited some
friends over for dinner that evening as well. They
both used to work at J.J.'s office and they have a
son Claire's age. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs
but had to eat inside because it was raining.
The kids had a fun time playing together, but we were
all up a little later than usual. Sunday morning was
Stake Conference, but instead of going back to
Paducah, the meeting was via satellite because it was
a regional stake conference. It started at 9:00 for
us because the region is mostly in the Eastern time
zone. But we kind of missed out on the meeting
because our satellite sound was out, so we had to
patch into a phone line and we could barely hear
anything. If our kids made one sound nobody around us
could hear. So we went out to the foyer with the kids
and could hear a little better over the speaker, and
people spread out through the building to listen in
various rooms because all of them were better than
the chapel. From what I heard, it sounded like a good
meeting, with Pres. Monson, Elder Perry and Elder Jay
Jensen. The problem with the satellite sound comes
from a recent change in our building management
company. It seems that we now have the strict
authoritarian group that won't allow anything in the
building that is not on the "checklist." We had some
nice cabinets in the clerk's office that weren't on
the checklist so they were taken out and everything
in them was left on the floor; an incriminating
bulletin board in the bishop's office was removed,
and we just found out today that the VCR that was
connected with the satellite system was apparently
not on the checklist either so this group took that
away without telling anyone. So, not only could we
not hear the conference because it wasn't connected
correctly or the VCR made it work somehow, but we
couldn't record the broadcast so that we could watch
it later and actually hear it.
The advantage of today's schedule was getting home at
11:30 instead of 1:30. But with the rain, it makes
for grumpy kids, so it's kind of a wash. Well, that
was our week. Finals week is this next week, and for
me that means grading papers and feeling bad about
the students who showed so much promise but somehow
faltered during the semester.
An interesting thing happened in the past few weeks
-- I had made a Facebook page a while back to see if
it might be useful for one of my classes, but I
determined it wasn't. But I still had the Facebook
page, and started to hear from old friends. Each
week, people from BYU and from Monticello are "adding
me as a friend." It is interesting to see what people
are up to. One of my good friends at BYU tracked me
down through Facebook and then called me after we
exchanged messages. I really like that I can now
easily contact those good friends, though I am sort
of puzzled what to do about people from high school
that I wouldn't even know what to say anything to. So
it is interesting.
That's our week -- we love you!
April 2009
Dear family,
Since we haven't written for the month of April, here
are some highlights:
Of course, April is the month of J.J.'s and my
birthdays, so there is always something going on
there. This year, however, both days were very busy
days for me. I had a meeting until 7:00 on my
birthday so when I came home there was time for cake
and getting the kids to bed. J.J. and I ended up
going out for dinner on another night. For her
birthday, I had a Faculty Recognition banquet that I
went to because I was recognized at it for receiving
a faculty fellowship grant for the summer -- to work
on the student handbook for the new composition
course. At the university, that was also Earth Week,
and one event was an outdoor showing of the movie
"Ferngully." So conveniently after the banquet I
walked outside the building I was in and met the
family on the grass where we watched the movie. The
weather was perfect and it was fun to watch the movie
outside.
Mom and Dad arrived here the second week of April,
and we had a good time while they were here. We went
to Mammoth Cave on Friday the 10th and then visited
the Adventure Science museum in Nashville before
spending the night there in order to attend the first
temple session for a sister in our ward who was
baptized last year. Mom and Dad graciously watched
our kids and our bishop's kids while we all went to
the session, and it was nice to see Loueva go
through. We ate lunch with some of the people there
after the session, and then drove home.
I talked Dad into singing in the Easter program at
church, and that went pretty well. After church
Trevor and Shara came over for Easter dinner and then
we had YSA home evening later on. Mom and Dad helped
a lot by watching the girls on Monday and Wednesday
while both of us were at work, and Mom also did a lot
of work outside on our weeding. She got everything
started and we have worked on things since to get
everything looking pretty nice.
On Thursday, J.J. left early in the morning with
Maggie for Klamath Falls for a few days, and then Mom
and Dad left to continue their trip to Palmyra, NY.
After they left, I took Claire and Rachel over to a
sister in the ward's house while I taught my classes,
and then I picked them up later. On Friday I took
them to Claire's art class, then one of our
babysitter's came over and I went to work for a few
hours, then I came home and took them to Claire's
dance class. That evening was Katey's birthday party,
so Claire went over there and it was also a sleepover
and a trip to Illinois the next day, so it was just
Rachel and me at home. Claire was able to go on a
pony ride while she was in Illinois and had a great
time. Rachel and I, on Saturday, went out to Land
Between the Lakes on a hike. I was scouting out an
area to take my Environmental Literature class on a
hike, so we took a trail that I thought was 2 miles.
It turned out to be 5 miles, but it was a nice hike,
and Rachel walked a lot of it. I had to carry her on
my shoulders otherwise, but she did great. We drove
around to check out a few little roads as well and
got home in time for her to take a nap. When I gave
her a bath later, she had a deer tick on her chest,
and I couldn't get it out by myself. Luckily, just
about that time Claire came home and I had her ask
Bridget for help and she pulled it out while I held
Rachel.
The next day I had a field trip planned. We had tried
to find a Saturday, but too many things were going on
so we finally settled on a Sunday. But it poured
rain; I mean poured rain that morning. So when Meghan
and Rob came to take Claire and Rachel to church and
drop me off where the MSU minibuses are, it was
really coming down. I took the minibus to the meeting
place and only had 6 out of the 12 I was expecting
show up. So we drove through the rain to LBL, started
on a short hike, and it stopped raining shortly
thereafter and didn't rain again. We went on a longer
2-mile hike, and there was a lot of walking through
water, but it was fun. The students enjoyed being out
there and we had some good discussions about things.
I got home from our field trip around 4:30, and Doug
and Heidi were watching the girls because Meghan and
Rob had to do something after 3. I still had YSA home
evening later and the day worked out pretty well.
That was the beginning of Earth Week, and so I was
involved as I could be in events happening that week,
especially since several of my students were
organizing things. So in addition to the movie on
Thursday night, I went to a couple of forums and
bought the $1 lunch for fundraiser for the student
environmental society. I actually bought lunches for
Dough and Heidi since they walked by while I was
there. Real generous, I know.
So, while the last week of the month was very rainy,
the middle of the month was about the best weather
possible -- 70s, sometimes a breeze, sometimes not,
so it was really nice for most of the month. I was
able to get our garden tilled before the rain, and
with the soft ground we did a lot of weeding and
planting of flowers.
Well, that's about all I can remember. Maggie is
growing and doing well. Rachel got a little sick for
a week, but got over that and Claire has been busy
growing up to be a "schoolgirl." We love you all!
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