Back to School

When we went to Target the other day I saw all the back to school stuff already out. It really seems that summer has just begun and yet kids are beginning to gather up their stuff for a new school year. Suddenly, I missed those days of picking out new school supplies: backpack, notebooks, pens, click pencils and erasers (my favorites), Trapper Keepers (remember those?), folders, calculators, and pencil boxes. Remember they used to make those thick cardboard ones? Now they're all plastic. There were all sorts of prints on them - maps of the world, cartoon characters, beach scenes, numbers and letters, etc. They would sit in your flip top desk holding your brand new crayons, erasers, pencils, and markers. I remember I always kept a neat desk; it drove me nuts to see other students with papers and books jammed into their desks in such disarray that they could hardly close them. Yep, even in elementary school, I was a neat freak.

It was always a struggle deciding which notebook to use for which subject. Does English look like red this year or yellow? Black usually went to Math, my least favorite subject ever.

I remember a long string of years where it was uncool to wear both shoulder straps of your backpack. Why, I have no idea, because it became ridiculously heavy to lug a heavy backpack with only one strap over your shoulder.

Peg legged jeans, really high bangs, flourescent clothes, and leggings came and went. When I watch movies with those sorts of fashions, I just cringe at how awful we must have all looked.

I remember high school mornings hanging out by the band room door, my ugly locker, eating lunch with friends, Mr. Kerouac getting mad at the saxophonists, English class always being the best, My Brown-Eyed Girl at school dances, scaring the pizza man at Julie's house, first love...this is starting to sound like what you'd sign in a yearbook...

Anyway, what do you remember about school?

Getting Wet!

This is a second post about our Houston trip this past weekend. These pictures were taken at a neighborhood waterpark in Spring, TX. Our good friends Sean, Katherine, and their three handsome boys live down there and we were able to spend a few hours with them.

It was there that we discovered Esther had really internalized what she'd learned at swimming lessons. She was in the zero depth entry pool, which only got to about 1 foot deep, but somehow she ended up on her stomach and couldn't find the bottom. Daron and I were a little distance from her and saw her swimming for her life towards the side of the pool. An older girl was right in front of it and so Esther grabbed at her first. The sweet thing pushed my baby away! It was then that Daron ran after her and made sure she got to the wall and then showed her that she could actually stand up right there. Poor Esther was rather hysterical about the whole affair, but her Daddy just showered her with praise and told her what a good job she'd done. Now her only recollection of the event is that she was a wonderful swimmer and swam to the wall all by herself!





This is my favorite! The water made Esther look all "wiggly" like a fun house mirror!

Sail Away

This weekend we went down to Houston for our nephew's "farewell" talk in church. He is leaving this week to serve a mission in Denver Colorado. We are so excited for him and are looking forward to getting his emails over the next two years.

Another highlight of our trip was a ride on a 36 foot sailboat. We drove down to Kemah, which is about 25 miles north of Galveston. Damon (one of Daron's older brothers) allowed him to steer us out of the slip into the bay, which is a surprisingly shallow 10 feet nearly all the way around. Nathan was less than enthusiastic about the life vest and though Esther took some convincing that it was necessary, she eventually got over it and enjoyed the entire ride. Once we got into Galveston Bay and the wind had picked up enough, Damon and Taylor put out the sails and we cut the motor. Except for Nathan's fussing, it was peaceful and relaxing. It was even more quiet once I started shoveling Cheerios into Nathan's mouth. Just as we were turning around to head back in, a dark cloud moved in. It looked rather ominous and all I could think of were the countless stories of people out for a pleasure cruise when suddenly the weather turned sour and then the boat capsized and all were lost. Damon assured me that we would be fine. Thunder began to roll in and lightning flashed in the not too distant sky. The wind picked up and then the rain began to dump on us. Damon and Taylor tried to pull in the sails, which was quite the feat, considering the wind was whipping the ropes all over the place.

Daron was at the helm, trying to keep us moving into the wind, and he was having quite the time trying to do so. My romantic mind, of course, had a brief fling thinking of him as a heroic naval officer steering his crew and ship safely into port through the violent churning sea... Suddenly Damon is shouting, "I think this is what they call a squall!!!" Back to being nervous. And it was mostly for the kids. I made Esther go down into the cabin, which really irritated her as she wanted to be up where the action was. So she sat with her Grandpa watching the waves out the portal. She was not scared one bit; she kept shouting up at me that we were bouncing up and down like rabbits. I had to sit with Nathan on the steps into the cabin as I had shortly before discovered that sitting down in the cabin was making me seasick.

Nathan calmed down after a few minutes and his eyes actually started drooping with all the rocking. Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The storm passed and the wind died down, leaving us to motor smoothly into the channel and back to the slip. We were all pretty wet and I was a tad shaky, but somehow I found that I had actually enjoyed it! Esther had nothing but praise for the whole experience. "That was a great ride!" she told her Grandma and gave Damon big hugs for taking us out in his "beautiful white sailboat." She will be talking about this for days!

This is right as the storm was building momentum.

Esther trying to steer the ship with Daddy.

Homemade Commercial

My little brother, a student at BYU-Idaho, recently made this commercial for his business 101 class. It is advertising Verizon Wireless. According to him, there were other commercials even more funny that his, but I enjoyed this. Tell me what you think.

Hippos?

I've been listening to a book on CD in the car recently and the other day it started skipping. Or, as Esther calls it, jumping. She said, "Mommy, the story is jumping up and down...like hippos!"

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This year, it's growing very well! We've got four tomato plants that are full grown and the fruit is starting to turn red. One of the beefsteak tomatoes is about 5 inches wide and is nearly ready to pick. We're planning on burgers this weekend...it will be a fitting finish to such a beautiful tomato. We also recently put in some peppers, cantaloupe, Armenian cucumbers, and three more tomato plants. We still plan on doing more planting. Unfortunately, Daron has had to take the garden by section and add peat moss and cotton burr compost and turn it all by hand, which is easier said than done considering the clay soil and the triple digits we've been experiencing most days here!

Happy Fourth!

For me, the Fourth of July ranks right up there with Christmas for favorite holiday. Growing up in Massachusetts, our history classes focused much on early American history and I learned to love it. The spirit of freedom always sang in my heart as we talked of the heroes that fought for this great country.

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity of visiting John Adams's birthplace and the home that he and Abigail lived in after his presidency. As I walked through the rooms that they did, I thought about the significant contributions and sacrifices that Adams and the other Founding Fathers gave. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

Even our dear Esther is on her way to becoming a very patriotic little girl. It has been so much fun for Daron and I to watch her enthusiasm grow at each July 4th parade we've attended. She claps and waves with all the fervor she can muster - for the Boy Scout troops, the politicians, the Red Hat Society ladies, the beauty pageant queens, the church groups - she doesn't care who they are, just that they are marching in a parade and waving flags. She still doesn't have much of an understanding of what it all means, but I hope she - and Nathan - will learn that it's more than just catching the candy that's thrown to the crowd, oohing over the antique cars, or marching in time to the bands. I hope they will learn that the little flags they wave so eagerly are symbols of all that means freedom in our country. I hope that they will learn to love this beautiful land in which we are so blessed to live.

There is a reason that my eyes swell with tears as I listen to or sing the National Anthem; there is a reason that I cannot say the Pledge of Allegiance without a lump in my throat. It is that I know that Heavenly Father has blessed our country with incredible freedom - freedom that we often take for granted and forget to acknowledge God's hand in. May we remember to thank our God for the freedom that He has given us and may we remember to use it well.