Crossing the creek - again!
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A couple 'a crazy weeks
Well, I haven't blogged in a while. Greg informed me that it was my turn, so here I am. It has been a crazy couple of weeks for us. If you can't tell from my lack of blogging, I am struggling to keep my head above water right now. It seems to take about all of my energy just to take care of the kids each day, then when you add on extra things, whoa.
Some of these extra things have included, among others, Greg's mom's visit to our home, Greg working very late every night this week and then being gone all day yesterday, and Adam starting school.
We had a great visit with Greg's mom last weekend. The kids were in heaven as their grandma played with them almost every moment that they were awake. She even squished herself into the back of our van between Lizzy's carseat and Adam and rode to Nauvoo and back, entertaining the kids all the way (or was it they who were entertaining her?). Adam didn't even fall asleep on the way home, despite the late hour, because he was enjoying talking his grandma's ear off way too much. The kids were very sad to see her go, and so were Greg and I. We hope to see her again sooner than later.
Greg is at the end of a big project and has been putting in tons of extra hours to clean up the mess of others and try to get things in order before some collaborating has to be done this coming week. I don't think he came home before 9:30 any night this week, except Friday (and that was only because I had something previously planned at our house and needed help with the kids). Then he was gone before 7 am Saturday and didn't get home until midnight for this huge youth Nauvoo day for our ward. Needless to say we are both exhausted. He assures me that his hours will not be so late this week. I know my brother has been spending tons of time at the hospital. My heart goes out to him and his wonderful wife. It is really hard not seeing your spouse much, and then when you do see them your both so tired you can hardly speak without slurring your words (which is what I am doing right now, if typing could talk). I am glad we don't have weeks like this very often. Usually Greg keeps great hours and I will look forward to those hours (and no others) this week.
The other thing that has sort of flipped things around this week, is that Adam has started back to school. I think it was harder to see him off this year than last. The summer went so much better than I thought it would, having him home all day. We really enjoyed having him around and have missed him already. He was also way nervous about starting at a new school. I felt like such a terrible mom having to put him through this. But things have gone really well. He seems to feel comfortable with the school and the routine of it all. He loves schedules and routines. It has been hard for me to get back into dropping him off and picking him up routine everyday, though. It seems I am always having to wake the baby so we can go to the school. It is also discouraging that his teacher is on maternity leave until the middle/end of September, so he has a sub until then. Then of course there is the whole ordeal of making sure the school is meeting his needs which seemed like such a challenge for me last year. I am not looking forward to that. There are more programs and teachers available to Adam at this school, because it is much bigger than our last one, but it is a matter of getting him in those programs. Already the "work" he has brought home is sooo easy for him. Sometimes, we think, now why is it we are sending him to school, he reads so much more and is so much more involved in things he is interested in at home. I guess if I had to pick a challenge for a kid though, this would be a good one to pick. He loves learning (so far) and is interested in such a variety of things. Just having to be on "school time" again changes the flow of things around here.
Anyway, enough. If you have even finished reading this posting you must have a little more time on your hands than I do! I probably wouldn't have even written this much but once you get me going it's hard to stop me. Cleanse and purge and all that.
Some of these extra things have included, among others, Greg's mom's visit to our home, Greg working very late every night this week and then being gone all day yesterday, and Adam starting school.
We had a great visit with Greg's mom last weekend. The kids were in heaven as their grandma played with them almost every moment that they were awake. She even squished herself into the back of our van between Lizzy's carseat and Adam and rode to Nauvoo and back, entertaining the kids all the way (or was it they who were entertaining her?). Adam didn't even fall asleep on the way home, despite the late hour, because he was enjoying talking his grandma's ear off way too much. The kids were very sad to see her go, and so were Greg and I. We hope to see her again sooner than later.
Greg is at the end of a big project and has been putting in tons of extra hours to clean up the mess of others and try to get things in order before some collaborating has to be done this coming week. I don't think he came home before 9:30 any night this week, except Friday (and that was only because I had something previously planned at our house and needed help with the kids). Then he was gone before 7 am Saturday and didn't get home until midnight for this huge youth Nauvoo day for our ward. Needless to say we are both exhausted. He assures me that his hours will not be so late this week. I know my brother has been spending tons of time at the hospital. My heart goes out to him and his wonderful wife. It is really hard not seeing your spouse much, and then when you do see them your both so tired you can hardly speak without slurring your words (which is what I am doing right now, if typing could talk). I am glad we don't have weeks like this very often. Usually Greg keeps great hours and I will look forward to those hours (and no others) this week.
The other thing that has sort of flipped things around this week, is that Adam has started back to school. I think it was harder to see him off this year than last. The summer went so much better than I thought it would, having him home all day. We really enjoyed having him around and have missed him already. He was also way nervous about starting at a new school. I felt like such a terrible mom having to put him through this. But things have gone really well. He seems to feel comfortable with the school and the routine of it all. He loves schedules and routines. It has been hard for me to get back into dropping him off and picking him up routine everyday, though. It seems I am always having to wake the baby so we can go to the school. It is also discouraging that his teacher is on maternity leave until the middle/end of September, so he has a sub until then. Then of course there is the whole ordeal of making sure the school is meeting his needs which seemed like such a challenge for me last year. I am not looking forward to that. There are more programs and teachers available to Adam at this school, because it is much bigger than our last one, but it is a matter of getting him in those programs. Already the "work" he has brought home is sooo easy for him. Sometimes, we think, now why is it we are sending him to school, he reads so much more and is so much more involved in things he is interested in at home. I guess if I had to pick a challenge for a kid though, this would be a good one to pick. He loves learning (so far) and is interested in such a variety of things. Just having to be on "school time" again changes the flow of things around here.
Anyway, enough. If you have even finished reading this posting you must have a little more time on your hands than I do! I probably wouldn't have even written this much but once you get me going it's hard to stop me. Cleanse and purge and all that.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Grandma's Belly Ache
Yesterday morning, Anna decided that Grandma deserved a belated birthday cake, so she set out constructing one. Pretty soon Adam and Lizzy had joined in the fun and constructed an 8 foot tall "cake". Poor Grandma had to eat it all! She had quite the bellyache by the end. (Click the picture to get a better look at it!)
Friday, August 12, 2005
Grandma Cherrie (Greg's mom) has come to visit this weekend. We decided to go out on a riverboat cruise this afternoon. The kids had earned free kids passes for finishing their summer reading programs, so we all headed out to enjoy some time on the river. Here's the crew crossing the gang plank to get on board.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
About Adam
Tammy has been writing occasionally about each of the kids, so I've decided to take a turn and write about Adam.
This week Adam passed level 1 swimming lessons. It was his third try at level 1 (can you tell we don't swim a whole lot?) but this time passed with flying colors. One of the requirements was to hold your breath underwater for at least 5 seconds. His big goal for the session was to set a new "record" of breath holding. He ended up holding it for 40 seconds - far outdistancing his previous record and the others in his class (I think the next longest was 22 seconds). If you can't tell he likes to push himself a lot.
Another big challenge he's taken on is to read the whole Book of Mormon by the end of the year. President Hinckley issued a challenge to all church members to read the whole Book of Mormon before the end of the year (about 1.5 chapters per day). That's no small task for a grown-up, let alone a six year old, but it's something he didn't even think twice about when I mentioned it to him. It's also been very good for me though - he's come in every morning this week at 6 am to drag me down to read. We each read a couple of chapters silently and then spend a few minutes talking about it. I'm always amazed at the level of comprehension that he has of this difficult scriptural language. When he was little, Tammy used to spend a lot of time with him teaching him scripture stories. I expect that helps him to better put in context what he is reading.
Adam loves to read and he's very good at it. He's spent much of his time reading this summer - he's read more than 50 chapter books since school let out in June. The library is running out of youth chapter books for him to read. He's also taken to math quite a bit this summer and astonishes me from time to time with his mental calculating. The other day we were talking about the Bix race and I told him that I was running the 7 miles at about a 10 minute per mile pace. Without a blink of an eye or a second thought, he says, "Oh, so you finished in an hour and ten minutes."
Adam is also beginning to develop a love of sports. I guess with his competitive spirit it is only natural that he would learn to love sports. He especially likes basketball (a trait he inherited from his father I think). Since we've moved to the new house, he and I have gone to the park across the street most Saturday mornings to play ball for a little while. He's not quite strong enough to get the ball up to a 10 foot hoop, but that doesn't discourage him from trying. This past Saturday, he did actually make 4 shots - three of them heaving the ball backwards over his head. The other was a frontwards shot and he was very excited when it went in. We usually play "horse" - he just has to hit the rim, I have to actually make the shot. He won every game on Saturday. Another sports related comment - a few months ago, Tammy and Adam had gone out shopping and I had stayed home with the other kids. After putting them to bed, I turned on game 7 of the NBA championship series. When Adam arrived home I told him what I was watching and mentioned that whoever won that game that night would be the world champions. His mouth literally dropped open, his face flushed, he put his hand on his heart and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness!" He was truly impressed. Tammy and I both cracked up at his expression and of course we let him stay up and watch the end of the game.
All-in-all, Adam is a pretty remarkable kid. He works hard to do well at most things he tries, especially when it involves a competition of some sort. Although he's competitive, he's usually a pretty good loser when he doesn't come out on top. He's also very considerate of his younger siblings. He encourages each of them in whatever they're doing. Lately, he's enjoyed dragging little Ben around to whereever he needs to go. He does have some "normal kid" features that can be frustrating - he doesn't like to do chores, doesn't always care much for what mom and dad have to say, will provoke his sister's to get them screaming, and so forth - but overall we're very happy to have Adam!
This week Adam passed level 1 swimming lessons. It was his third try at level 1 (can you tell we don't swim a whole lot?) but this time passed with flying colors. One of the requirements was to hold your breath underwater for at least 5 seconds. His big goal for the session was to set a new "record" of breath holding. He ended up holding it for 40 seconds - far outdistancing his previous record and the others in his class (I think the next longest was 22 seconds). If you can't tell he likes to push himself a lot.
Another big challenge he's taken on is to read the whole Book of Mormon by the end of the year. President Hinckley issued a challenge to all church members to read the whole Book of Mormon before the end of the year (about 1.5 chapters per day). That's no small task for a grown-up, let alone a six year old, but it's something he didn't even think twice about when I mentioned it to him. It's also been very good for me though - he's come in every morning this week at 6 am to drag me down to read. We each read a couple of chapters silently and then spend a few minutes talking about it. I'm always amazed at the level of comprehension that he has of this difficult scriptural language. When he was little, Tammy used to spend a lot of time with him teaching him scripture stories. I expect that helps him to better put in context what he is reading.
Adam loves to read and he's very good at it. He's spent much of his time reading this summer - he's read more than 50 chapter books since school let out in June. The library is running out of youth chapter books for him to read. He's also taken to math quite a bit this summer and astonishes me from time to time with his mental calculating. The other day we were talking about the Bix race and I told him that I was running the 7 miles at about a 10 minute per mile pace. Without a blink of an eye or a second thought, he says, "Oh, so you finished in an hour and ten minutes."
Adam is also beginning to develop a love of sports. I guess with his competitive spirit it is only natural that he would learn to love sports. He especially likes basketball (a trait he inherited from his father I think). Since we've moved to the new house, he and I have gone to the park across the street most Saturday mornings to play ball for a little while. He's not quite strong enough to get the ball up to a 10 foot hoop, but that doesn't discourage him from trying. This past Saturday, he did actually make 4 shots - three of them heaving the ball backwards over his head. The other was a frontwards shot and he was very excited when it went in. We usually play "horse" - he just has to hit the rim, I have to actually make the shot. He won every game on Saturday. Another sports related comment - a few months ago, Tammy and Adam had gone out shopping and I had stayed home with the other kids. After putting them to bed, I turned on game 7 of the NBA championship series. When Adam arrived home I told him what I was watching and mentioned that whoever won that game that night would be the world champions. His mouth literally dropped open, his face flushed, he put his hand on his heart and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness!" He was truly impressed. Tammy and I both cracked up at his expression and of course we let him stay up and watch the end of the game.
All-in-all, Adam is a pretty remarkable kid. He works hard to do well at most things he tries, especially when it involves a competition of some sort. Although he's competitive, he's usually a pretty good loser when he doesn't come out on top. He's also very considerate of his younger siblings. He encourages each of them in whatever they're doing. Lately, he's enjoyed dragging little Ben around to whereever he needs to go. He does have some "normal kid" features that can be frustrating - he doesn't like to do chores, doesn't always care much for what mom and dad have to say, will provoke his sister's to get them screaming, and so forth - but overall we're very happy to have Adam!
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Release
Well, after 2 and 1/2 years in the relief society presidency, I was (finally) released today. I served as both the Enrichment and the Education counselors (they moved me to Education after Ben was born). Enrichment was a lot of hard work and it seemed like there was always something going on, but it was fulfilling when I finally felt like we got the program running as it should be. It was nice to feel like the activities and classes we provided might actually benefit somebody. Education counselor required so much less of me because we have reliable teachers and music people. I was just starting to take a look at literacy a bit closer when I was released. The relief society president that I have been serving under has been in for 4 years and she was ready to be released. I think she rubbed off on me and I was more than ready as well.
So, you say, what is your new calling? Well, I am the new Valiant 12 teacher in primary. I am so excited. The youth in that class are awesome. I visited their class today. In fact, one of them has been sitting with me in sacrament meeting since Lizzy was born, to help me out. Almost every Sunday I have to leave her with some of the kids while I deal with Ben, and sometimes Lizzy in the hall (deal with them sounds kind of harsh, but you know what I mean, take care of them, help them be quiet, keep them away from other people so they won't disturb anyone). It has the added bonus of being able to go to Relief Society once they all turn 12 because they go to YW and YM instead of primary sharing time. Yeah!! That rocks. If you can't tell, I am excited. I'll let you know in a few weeks if I am still excited, or if they have put me in my place.
Now, Greg says, "When is it my turn?" He's had his calling 4 years (and 2 months), but who's counting. Greg has just informed me that that is 5o months. I think he's ready. Should I send a link to our blog to the bishop?
So, you say, what is your new calling? Well, I am the new Valiant 12 teacher in primary. I am so excited. The youth in that class are awesome. I visited their class today. In fact, one of them has been sitting with me in sacrament meeting since Lizzy was born, to help me out. Almost every Sunday I have to leave her with some of the kids while I deal with Ben, and sometimes Lizzy in the hall (deal with them sounds kind of harsh, but you know what I mean, take care of them, help them be quiet, keep them away from other people so they won't disturb anyone). It has the added bonus of being able to go to Relief Society once they all turn 12 because they go to YW and YM instead of primary sharing time. Yeah!! That rocks. If you can't tell, I am excited. I'll let you know in a few weeks if I am still excited, or if they have put me in my place.
Now, Greg says, "When is it my turn?" He's had his calling 4 years (and 2 months), but who's counting. Greg has just informed me that that is 5o months. I think he's ready. Should I send a link to our blog to the bishop?
Bix
This is Bix weekend in the QuadCities. Bix Beiderbeck (sp?) was a famous jazz musician years ago. Davenport has hosted a jazz festival every year for a long time in honor of him. Back in the 70's a road race called the Bix7 was added to the festivities. Our family has participated in the Bix most years since we've lived here. On Friday evening was the "Jr. Bix" consisting of a bunch of shorter races for kids. Adam and the 6 year olds ran a half mile race. Anna and Lizzy each ran a 70 yard dash. (See pictures below for more details about each of their races). After the race there's a big party where they serve free hotdogs, drinks, ice cream, and other healthy stuff. There's also a carnival for the kids. I think there are somewhere around 5000 kids and their parents that participate every year. Adam and Lizzy even made it on TV during their races! We all had a very fun time!
On Saturday morning, I ran the Bix7 road race. It's a seven mile race up and down the hills of Davenport. It's a huge race and this year drew over 20,000 runners including some of the best in the world - I think there were a few Olympic medalists running this year. This is the fourth time I've run the race and I ended up with my 3rd best time. I wasn't quite in the shape I should have been in to be running seven miles, but I had a good time anyway. The first mile you practically have to walk - there are just too many people to really be able to move much. I finally got through the first mile in about 12 minutes. The second mile is usually my best one - the crowd is thinning out enough to run some and it's mostly downhill. I finished that one in a little under 8 minutes. The third mile continues downhill for about the first 3/4 mile - then comes the killer hill - it's only a 1/4 mile, but very steep. That hill always wipes me out completely. At about that point, I started sputtering along just trying to keep going. At the half way point (3.5 miles) I was at 32 minutes total (by the way - that's about exactly the time the winner was crossing the finish line). Miles 4 and 5 I was hurting so bad and moving so slowly that I might as well have been walking. They're both almost all uphill and not very fun at all. Mile six levels off for the most part and I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel so I picked up the pace a little. Mile seven is the funnest one - not only is it the end of the race, but it's a steep downhill for most of it. I was able to finish the last mile fairly strong and even remained concious when it was all over (barely). I think I came in about 5500th place.
The rest of yesterday I was kind of numb - headache, sore muscles, exhaustion, but I'm feeling quite a bit better this morning. Below are some pictures of our fun time this weekend.
On Saturday morning, I ran the Bix7 road race. It's a seven mile race up and down the hills of Davenport. It's a huge race and this year drew over 20,000 runners including some of the best in the world - I think there were a few Olympic medalists running this year. This is the fourth time I've run the race and I ended up with my 3rd best time. I wasn't quite in the shape I should have been in to be running seven miles, but I had a good time anyway. The first mile you practically have to walk - there are just too many people to really be able to move much. I finally got through the first mile in about 12 minutes. The second mile is usually my best one - the crowd is thinning out enough to run some and it's mostly downhill. I finished that one in a little under 8 minutes. The third mile continues downhill for about the first 3/4 mile - then comes the killer hill - it's only a 1/4 mile, but very steep. That hill always wipes me out completely. At about that point, I started sputtering along just trying to keep going. At the half way point (3.5 miles) I was at 32 minutes total (by the way - that's about exactly the time the winner was crossing the finish line). Miles 4 and 5 I was hurting so bad and moving so slowly that I might as well have been walking. They're both almost all uphill and not very fun at all. Mile six levels off for the most part and I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel so I picked up the pace a little. Mile seven is the funnest one - not only is it the end of the race, but it's a steep downhill for most of it. I was able to finish the last mile fairly strong and even remained concious when it was all over (barely). I think I came in about 5500th place.
The rest of yesterday I was kind of numb - headache, sore muscles, exhaustion, but I'm feeling quite a bit better this morning. Below are some pictures of our fun time this weekend.
Here's a shot of Adam after his race. He was actually looking much worse a few minutes before. This was the first long distance race Adam has ever run. The six year olds run a half mile. In case you've forgotten how far a half mile is, it's two full trips around a standard track - quite a trek for little legs. There were about 200 or 300 six year olds running this year and Adam came in around 15th or so place. He crashed around the turn around point, but picked himself up and kept going. We are pretty proud of him!
Here's Anna lining up with the other four year olds before her race. The four year old race was 70 yards. Anna dashed out of the blocks and ran fast about half way. Then she realized she was getting uncomfortably far ahead of me and slowed down so I could catch up. (The parents run with the little ones!)
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