The Flautist

This week QuayQuay realized her lifelong dream of becoming a flautist.  She is an enthusiastic member of her school band, and her only complaint is the excessive amount of time she is required to spend in other classes like math and reading which seriously conflict with the amount of time she would like to spend learning to play the flute.  So far the band class is taking things slow and steady... today they finally got to put the pieces of their instruments together.  It was an exciting day. :)

How to Stay Out of Trouble While the Kids are at School

People have been asking me for ages what I would do when all of my children were in school.  I've had lots of big plans.  What I'm actually doing is taking care of this new addition to the family:

Meet Thursday Violet Esmeralda Rocketship, our Labrador Retriever puppy.  She's awfully cute, and it's a good thing too, because she is a lot of work.  But we love her, and we are happy she's part of our family.

A New School Year

This summer flew by far faster than I would have liked, and the first day of school caught me more off-guard and unprepared than usual.  We are at a new school this year; the kids were accepted at a magnet school that offers exciting elective classes and a curriculum that I think will be a great fit for us.  Here they are on the girls' first day:

Babs in 5th grade, QuayQuay in 3rd grade

And then a few days later, MungBean got to go to school too... Kindergarten!!! Here they are on his first day:

The morning of MungBean's first day, as we were getting ready to go, I noticed Babs seemed a little down.  I asked if everything was ok, and she said, "Yes.  It's just [MungBean] is growing up so fast!" and then she got a little choked up.  We shed a few tears together over our little boy being all grown up.  I shed quite a few more when I dropped him off at his classroom.  But of course he loved it, and has been eagerly awaiting his return to school.  

And that's where they all are as I sit here in a quiet house typing away.  Hard to believe that they're all getting so big.  Happy Back-to-School, everyone!

One of the Many Reasons I Love Chicago

While the kids and I were in Chicago this summer we decided to try a twist on our usual summer game of looking for license plates from all the different states while driving on a road trip.  This time we decided to see how many different states we could find just in the fabulous city of Chicago.  We found a whopping 48 out of 51 possible US license plates (including Washington DC)!  Here's the best part: of those 48 plates, we found 45 of them within walking distance of my parents' house.  Amazing!  We managed to spot the missing 3 within the next week as we continued our travels: Munkus and I found Hawaii in the town of South Charleston, WV; Montana appeared in the church parking lot in Chesapeake, VA; and the last holdout was Vermont, but we squeaked it in in on our way home, finally seeing it just 1/4 of a mile from our own front door.  Phew!  My dad found us an awesome iPhone app that keeps track of the plates you see on a little map.  It's fantastic.  We did lots of fun things in Chicago, but the license plate game was really one of the highlights for me!

One of the Many Reasons I Love Alabama

Munkus's family moved from Utah to Alabama when he was a kid.  When his parents first went out to Alabama to interview, look for a house, get the lay of the land, etc, they brought back a t-shirt from the  beach for their youngest daughter, Melissa.  Melissa proudly told her elementary school teacher about how her parents went to the beach in Alabama, only to be contradicted by her teacher who insisted that Alabama has no beaches.  Well, lucky for all of us, that teacher was way wrong.  Alabama has beaches, really nice ones.  And while the kids and I were down there visiting Mimi, we got to spend a truly lovely day at Gulf Shores:

It was marvelous!  The kids tried out boogie boards for the first time and they loved it.  We managed to mostly avoid getting sunburned, and I really couldn't have asked for a more wonderful day.  Well, apparently there was a pod of dolphins that swam by just before we arrived... if they had waited 10 minutes till we showed up that would have been slightly more perfect.  Otherwise it was everything I could hope for in a beach day!

(PS, Melissa, I told that story at the beginning as I remember hearing it... please let me know if I got the details wrong!)

Better Late than Never

Exactly 18 years ago today, I turned 18 and graduated from Young Women to Relief Society.  Without my Personal Progress Medallion, which I hadn't bothered to earn.  I have since repented.  Today in Sacrament Meeting, I received my medallion.  Happy Birthday to me!

Likening the Scriptures

This morning we read Mark Chapter 3. It starts like this:

"And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand."

"You mean like Dumbledore?" asked QuayQuay.

Yep.